Lisa Price

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Going Beyond $1 a Word: Getting Paid on the Internet, a presentation for writers, managers, and content providers

Syndication handout:

With the recent downturn in the economy, newsrooms, newspapers, magazine and Web outlets are letting staff writers go, and are looking for cheaper content alternatives.  Buying content from syndicates is becoming more popular for these publishers.  Watch for this trend to continue.

Here are some online syndication places to check:

·         @Large Features Syndicates (http://www.atlargefeatures.com)—This might be good place to try, because it is new.  They syndicate your work to newspapers and you retain all rights to your material, plus you get 75% (not the usual 50%) of all revenue generated from your work.

·         Correspondent.com (http://www.correspondent.com)—Not a syndicate in the traditional sense of reusing previously printed material.  Here you sign up as one of their journalists and then file original news articles that are sent out along their wire to hundreds of newspapers and Web outlets across the country. ( Correspondent.com is based in the U.K.) The more your article is picked up, the more money you make.

·         Featurewell.com (http://www.featurewell.com)—Still a good place for freelancers to syndicate their work.  Featurewell likes longer articles and buys a lot from print.  They sell primarily to Web sites and magazines.  Authors receive 60% of the sale. 

·         Indipen.com (http://www.indipen.com)—You set the price of your article and Indipen then syndicates it worldwide.  They take a 15% cut of any sale.

·         iTravelSyndicate (http://www.itravelsyndicate)—They send an email out to travel professionals listing the articles available (which usually go for $100-$200).  Freelancers set the price and iTravel keeps 40% commission.

·         MediaBullet (http://www.mediabullet.com)—Freelancers set the fee and MediaBullet retains a 10% fee.  Sells mostly to newspapers.  Is also looking for packages that contain video, photos or graphics.

·         ScreamingMedia (http://www.screamingmedia.com)—This was one of the first Web syndicates and now is one of the slickest.  Unfortunately, they rarely buy from freelancers, preferring to buy from outfits offering lots of content.

·         SecondRights.com (http://www.secondrights.com)—Looking to buy second-rights for technology and computer-related articles for resale to newspapers, magazines and Web sites.  Writer sets the fee and negotiates directly with the editor.  SecondRights takes a 10% finder’s fee for each article sold.

·         YourNews (http://www.yournews.com)—This is another syndicate who mostly buys from large print (Business 2.0) and Web (C/Net) content providers.  About the only thing they are looking for now from freelancers are news packages that contain audio and video.

(Reprinted, by permission, from the forthcoming book, Hot Text—Web Writing that Works! by Jonathan and Lisa Price.)