Why would you work for free?

First watch the video above then read my little rambling pissed off story.

This has got to be my biggest gripe as a blogger and freelance writer.....people who give away their work. There are plenty of online companies and websites that are just clamoring for unskilled and fresh out of college writers to work for them for ............FREE (or almost free, it is called peanuts).

Who are these content producing sweat shops? They are the new wave of the future my friends. They are big companies like Yahoo and AOL to the smaller ones that have a league of paid bloggers like IZEA. They either want you to produce a written work of art that will pull in readers and yet only cost them pocket change or they want you to post an article on your own blog touting the miracles of the "X" brand of toothpaste all for under a $1.

A few years ago, online writers could earn a decent part-time salary. I was earning about $200 a week just on paid blog posts. Not bad until the paid blogging companies got really cheap with their offerings. Then came the influx of non-English speaking writers who have admitted to eagerly snapping up writing assignments for $1 for 300 words because that is nearly a day's wage where they live. All I can say is.....where in the F*** can you go online, pay the electric bill and still profit at $1 a day? Of course they did not mention that they also grab 4 or 5 other $1 assignments at the same time bringing it to a whooping $5 a day.

That brings me to the fact that many people join content producing websites like hubpages and demand studios just to churn out as many articles as they can so they can get a few extra dollars here and there. There is nothing wrong with that.....BUT DON'T CUT YOURSELF SHORT. Just like he said in the video above, quality costs money. If you write quality articles, expect to be paid with quality numbers. Most well written short articles of under 800 words are paid at the rate of over $75..........NOT $5!! Find and locate those companies that will pay those higher numbers and quit giving your work away.