The Big Zero

In the past two months I have written 24 articles, with accompanying photos, for a website called Portland Examiner.  They have mostly been about food purveyors since my "beat" is grocery stores, and a couple are about people since I got a new beat called Everyday People. Now, when you Google my name they come up. For all this work, I have earned the sum total of: Zero.

This is the sorry state of freelance writing these days. Job boards that once ran ads for paying customers like magazines and associations have become the middle men for websites selling content and ad space. The writer gets "exposure" and a percentage of the take, which often comes out to: Zero.

Sites like Red Room and Suite 101 and Examiner and Demand Studios and Rafter JumpOn all exclaim excitedly, "Now you can make money from the comfort of your home by telecommuting!"  And they pay you : Zero.

So I might just as well write on my own blog where I can say whatever I want, have just as few --or just as many--readers, and earn the same amount: Zero.