As part of this blog’s ongoing deliciously directionless theme, I have decided to start a new series called “Worst travel writing jobs.”
Also, “Deliciously Directionless” would be an outstanding foodie travel blog name. You’re welcome. (It has been claimed. Sorry.)
The “Worst travel writing jobs” series stems from my ongoing job hunt. As many of you know, I have been casually job hunting for many months, and very seriously job hunting for the past few weeks. If, at this moment, you’re thinking “Hey, Leif would be perfect for that Chief Awesomeness Officer position we’ve been trying to fill,” then you should contact me immediately. I am not kidding.
In the meantime, I’m spending a lot of time trolling job boards and I am continually amazed at some of the postings aimed at travel writers. By ‘amazed’, I mean ‘nauseated’. The audacity, the gall, the dangerously misplaced sense of authority. As if the mere utterance of the words “travel writer” will instantly hypnotize aspiring writers into working like rented mules for nearly nothing.
I’m both astonished and sickened by these job postings on a daily basis. So, I’ve decided to work through these emotions by mercilessly mocking them, with all identifying information removed to protect the stupid, naturally. So here we go.
5 travel Related Articles – 700 words each – $15 each
Two cents a word? From an anonymous publisher? Wow! My travel writing career is going to soar like the voice of a baseball umpire after a fastball to the produce section.
Job Description
Hello, I need 5 travel related articles of 700 words each delivered asap. Each article needs to be 100% unique, informative and pays $15 each.
Hello, I need a million dollars delivered asap. And a burrito. These items must be delivered by Kate Upton, wearing a leopard-print catsuit, riding a miniature unicycle. Anything less will be unacceptable. Go.
Each article will be paid for after it is completed, meaning no upfront bids will be entertained. The topics are simple so I expect some creativity in the content as these are for a esteemed travel magazine.
Hold on, you want me to write for $0.02 a word ON SPEC? Well why didn’t you say so? That’s WAY more reasonable! And may I say, with such high editorial standards and generous pay, your “esteemed travel magazine” should be sold with washcloths, so readers can be ready to catch all the orgasm.
Thanks
No, thank YOU! And I genuinely wish you a speedy recovery from the head injury you sustained just before writing this.
Hey Leif,
Please realize that these kinds of jobs are how some of us (i.e., me) make our living. Yeah, it sounds like peanuts, but $0.02 per word is actually reasonable for banging out articles that don’t require you to go anywhere other than Wikipedia. Look around and you’ll see there’s much worse and the average rate is most likely $0.01/word or lower. A decent writer should be able to do one of these articles in about 40 minutes, which translates to an hourly rate of over $20. If you’re living in Romania (again, me), then maintaining a few of these jobs is more than enough to surpass the average salary.
If you really want an example of a bad travel writing gig, check this one out: https://www.elance.com/j/english-writer-travel-articles-long-term/30667262/?backurl=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZWxhbmNlLmNvbS9yL2pvYnMvcS10cmF2ZWwvY2F0LXdyaXRpbmctdHJhbnNsYXRpb24=
Just a bit of advice, avoid odesk like the plague – there’s no escrow, meaning there is nothing to force a client to pay you.
Cheers.
“Deliciously Directionless” is actually the subtitle of my life right now, so thanks for that.
Seriously though, it’s good to know what’s out there to steer clear of. Interesting to hear Eli’s point of view as well.
Eli–
I respect where you’re coming from. I really do. And if you love living in Romania, that is awesome. But for those of us who live in countries where we could never support ourselves reasonably on this kind of assignment (keeping in mind that regurgitating from Wikipedia is clearly not what this person is asking for), I also must thank Leif for (1) shedding light on the issue and (2) making me laugh so hard, my wife told me to shut up.
It’s not the fact that this “esteemed travel magazine” pays 2 cents a word that troubles me. It’s the arrogance. Hell, I just re-launched my own travel website and I am groveling for guest bloggers at zero cents a word, so I’m hardly one to criticize for the low pay here. The difference is, I’m a little more humble, not to mention honest with people about why they should or shouldn’t give me their travel tales for free. My goal is to offer people a platform to help further their careers, and help them with their writing along the way, whereas this guy just comes across as a self-important bullying prick. If his magazine is so “esteemed,” why doesn’t he tell people who is is before asking them to spend time pitching stories for next to nothing.
So thanks, Eli, for your input. I do get where you’re coming from. And thanks, Leif, for the best laugh I’ve had all day.
@Eli – You can write a 700 word article in only 40 minutes?? Seriously? Holy hell. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone that writes that quickly. The usual, accepted industry estimate is 2,000 words per day. And that’s considered a BIG day.
Also, I strongly disagree about your assertion that $0.02 is reasonable. No one could possibly hope to make a living on that kind of pay unless they were living in a shack in India (or Romania). That’s content farm sweat house abuse right there. By accepting those types of jobs, you are, in fact, letting them know that this kind of behavior and pay is OK, which it is not. And yes, that link you provided is indeed a terrible gig. I think I’ll zing them next.
@Leif – Yes, I can easily write a basic 700 word travel article in 40 minutes and am willing to make a sizable wager (say, one beer next time you come to Romania?) that I can prove it. Depending on the topic (the level of research that is needed), my usual pace is somewhere a bit over 1,500 words an hour, or 3 500-word articles. I’m not saying this is top shelf stuff, but it’s not meant to be.
I think the biggest difference in our respective perspectives (hmm, that’s a bit catchy, may have to use it elsewhere) is in the nature of these jobs. This is NOT real travel writing – this is content writing. And the content writing game is played with a whole different set of rules. The phrase “100% unique” means that it will pass Copyscape with a 0% plagiarism rate (Google penalizes domains that have duplicate content) and the guy stating “no upfront bids” is just protecting himself from getting screwed. There are plenty of less than honest people that will sign up for a job, take the upfront money, and just create a new account. The only effective content writing practice that protects both writers and their clients is using an escrow.
Nobody is a content writer hoping to get noticed. The vast majority of articles you write won’t even have a byline. Nearly all the jobs you see on odesk, elance, freelancer, and the other sites are not meant to be high-level investigative journalism. They exist to raise search rankings, bring more visitors, and ultimately generate more advertising/referral revenue to the website owners. But you know this already. The guy that posted this job really only made one mistake and that’s referring to what he does as an “esteemed travel magazine,” which is a pretty cheap ploy to try and snag a decent writer who thinks they will be doing something more than content writing.
As for the money, I don’t think we can see eye to eye on this, but I’ll try to convince you anyway. What I do is NOT content farm sweat house stuff – that’s the Indian, Pakistani, and Nigerian writers (not being racist, but that’s where most of the cheap writers are from) that are literally writing for less than a penny a word (I just looked at one job that payed $2 for 450-word articles, or $0.0044/word, and yes, people were bidding on it). My minimum rate is $0.02/word and I also have contracts up to $0.04/word. I’m not going to publicly air my annual income, but you can do the math if you want. Suffice it to say that it’s been enough to maintain an apartment in the center of Bucharest and purchase a house in the country for a restoration project (keep in mind that $500/month is considered decent in Romania). At the same time, my annual income is clearly above the US poverty line (easily better than some 50 million Americans) and I can guarantee that my quality of life is better. So, no, this kind of work does not only support Indian shack-living and I don’t feel that I’m promoting some evil treatment of content writers. And all this is for about 20-30 hours/week.
In my mind, the only problem I have with the content writing I do is the ethical question of the bigger picture – whether what I write helps people, is a hindrance, or exists in some neutral zone. I would like to believe it’s the former or latter (I do write fact-based articles, so it could help people if they rise to the top of search rankings), but it’s probably a slight hindrance simply due to the extra static it creates on the internet.
But, really, would that be any worse than a real travel writer that gives a hostel a positive review after being bitten by bedbugs? Not naming names, but I was working there when you stayed. :) And I know that the owners did take care of the problem.
Anyway, sorry to be so long-winded, but I felt a bit attacked by your comment. I really do enjoy your writing (except the negative view towards Bucharest) and will remain one of your diligent readers. :)
Eli, I think you are the biggest tool I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading. So much so that I do not believe that you actually exist. Very funny joke from whomever created you!
@Eli – It wasn’t meant to be an attack on you, but rather an attack on the entire content farm system, which, despite your unique point of view, I still believe is entirely warranted. From the concept, to the writer pay, to the resulting “static” that makes that internet fractionally less effective as a research tool each year.
Also, regrettably, the bed bug issue in Romania isn’t the hostels, it’s Romania. I’ve encountered them at various different properties on my last three trips to Romania, 2010 being far and away the worst. If I dinged every property in Romania with bed bugs, I’d be dinging otherwise great places across the country, particularly the eternally outstanding property you’re referring to. And, in my experience, the property isn’t (usually) to fault for bed bugs, it’s whatever filthy/hapless backpacker passed through the prior week or whatever. So, I only mention bed bugs on occasions when there’s a comprehensive problem with the property, not just one bad night. Good to hear they jumped right on that issue though. Love those guys.
And I’m still amazed by your prolificacy. If you could find just a couple jobs paying $0.30 per word, you could have five countryside homes.
Still not pulling any punches, eh Adrian? Um, please be mindful of name-calling, though.
Ugh… This isn’t really where I wanted this discussion to go. Will try to keep my response brief.
I agree with you, content farms are bad. Very bad. Extremely bad. They saturate the internet with terrible articles and create the idea that it’s ok to pay writers poorly. Point taken and emphatically agreed with.
As I said in the last post, what I do is NOT content farm work – it’s content writing and there’s a difference. The articles are meant to be informative, there’s no keywords, it should be well-written from both a grammatical and stylistic point of view, and there’s almost always no more than one writer per job.
An example of content writing would be a client I have that does web services (design, hosting, etc) for small businesses in the US. I write his blog, which has topics that may be useful to his customers, such as setting up a new Offer on Facebook, understanding Google algorithm changes, and how to correctly use metadata to be understood by search engines (BTW, you do not do this properly on KB, which is kind of strange given the clear advertising and referral programs). I use authoritative sites like HubSpot for my research and a normal short post (300 words) will take me about 15-20 minutes to write. I would hope that the people who follow my client’s blog are helped by what I write, but the info is already online, so I am adding to the static (the slight hindrance). In the grand scheme of things, the static probably outweighs the help I give, but what I’m doing is nothing near the ethical problem presented by content farms.
The point of talking about the restoration house I bought was not to brag, but more to show that the income generated from content writing can support a decent life. Hell, anybody can find an abandoned, falling-down house in a Romanian village that needs a little TLC and buy it for about the same price as a year’s tuition at a community college, just like I did. We’re not talking about mansions and castles here. The content writing jobs I have make this a possibility for me and I just don’t see the pay of $0.02/word as being bad, especially after having been able to support myself with it. Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that aspect.
The thing about the bedbugs is not that you should ding every property, but at what point does a hostel get a negative review? I’m sure you know where I’m headed with this. You manage to get some zings in the LP guide here and there, but as far as hostels/bars/restaurants are concerned, it’s pretty one-sided with positive reviews. Not that this is a slight with you, probably more with LP for their basic practices. Knowing where NOT to stay/eat/etc is just as important as knowing the right places, in my opinion. LP is by far the best for Romania, but I’ve yet to see a travel guide, print or online, that gives the bad places the attention they need.
If I’m a tool for doing what I do, then I’m perfectly ok with that. Cheers to Adrian for letting me know what I am with such little information. And maybe I will start looking for those $0.30/word jobs – it won’t go to buy 5 new homes, but it certainly would help the one I have get the restoration it deserves.
@Eli – I’m not going to debate terminology, but going by generally understood definitions, whether the goal is to write intentional static or genuinely helpful 300-word articles (in a breathtaking 15-20 minutes as you claim), sites that rake in lickety-split articles en masse like you describe are content farms. There are, as you point out, probably some content farms that are more helpful than others, but they’re still content farms.
Metasearchydatathingywhat? Sometimes a blog is just a blog. Though at the urging of colleagues I finally installed the all-in-one SEO plug-in, I honestly have no idea what metadata is and I do not care. This is a creative outlet, nothing more. Do a few things well, not a dozen things shitty, that’s my intention. If I were a full-time blogger, metacacadoodoo would probably be much more crucial.
LP editorial policy has always been that (at least for as long as I’ve been writing for them), wherever possible, they simply do not include negative reviews if they are comprehensively negative and there are other options. (If you’re in a small town and everything sucks, then you have no choice but to write about the suck.) Not only to save time and energy on complaints/legal hassles, but because print publications adhere to strict word-count limits due to production costs. Especially in these cash-poor publishing days, publishers aren’t going to incurred higher production costs to add pages just so they can tune up properties with absolutely no redeeming qualities, no matter how richly those properties deserve it. If they tried to do that (as well as include ALL the great places instead of just a selection) books would be 2,000 pages long and cost $80. In this regard, websites are much better, as word count is out the window – but then you run the risk of blinding readers with too much info, so it’s still kind of a delicate balance.