10 Things to Know About Content Sites

A couple weeks ago, I realized that many of our new readers would benefit from a fellow beginner's perspective, and put out a call for newbies to submit guest posts. David Messmer is a new-ish freelance writer, although his portfolio shows that he is certainly on the right track. Messmer kindly supplied this guest post on content mills from his own experiences. Enjoy!

There are a lot of different opinions on content mills, from those who hate them, to those who tolerate them, to those who refuse to weigh in one way or the other. What's missing from that list are those who love them. Why? Because no one does.

Still, beginning freelance writers are bound to come across them, and maybe even to write for them. Here is a list of things to keep in mind when writing for a content mill:

1. Your Time is Valuable - Sure, it's hard to get clients in the beginning. But your time is worth more than $3 an hour. You are a professional - you shouldn't make less than a sixteen-year-old flipping burgers at McDonald's.
2. Know What You're Getting Into - Content mills thrive on complicated payment plans to hide the fact that they don't really pay much of anything. Be sure that you understand how much you will get paid for your efforts.
3. Calculate an Hourly Wage - Sure, you might be able to write an article in 20 minutes, but if you spend 10 minutes scrolling through topics, 20 minutes researching, and 10 minutes revising, that article just took up an hour of your time. How much did you get paid for that hour?
4. Don't Be Fooled - Before you go looking for any on-line writing jobs, make sure you read this excellent article on how to spot a content mill.
5. Remember Your Long Term Goals - Remember that spitting out short articles for mediocre pay isn't the reason that you decided to freelance. Keep looking for other opportunities and don't let the time you spend generating mill content take you away from growing your business.
6. You Have Better Writing Samples - A common reason that a beginning freelancer writes for a content mill is that it's a way to generate some samples to submit to other clients. But how many content mill topics really excite you? If they don't excite you they're not going to excite potential clients.
7. Be Efficient - If you are going to write for a mill, remember that time is money. Sure, you could research your topic all day, write an outline, craft your article, go over it with a fine-toothed comb, sleep on it, then revise it again the next day. You'll still only get paid $8.
8. Write What You Know - Writing a short article doesn't take long - as long as you know what to write. Research is a part of any article and since making money at a content mill is all about working fast, the less research you have to do the better.
9. Don't Chase Carrots - "Revenue sharing" is code for "we don't want to pay you anything." Working your way through a rating system in order to access higher paying articles (I'm looking at you, Textbroker) is an insult to your skills.
10. Get Advice - Content mills have already wasted plenty of people's time - learn from those people's mistakes. I've reviewed several of the biggest ones, and there are plenty of other sources of information on the topic.

Thanks, David! If you'd like to write a short, unique guest post of interest to NEW writers, email me for details at freelancewrite.guide@about.com.