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Open Post for Demand Studio Editors
Felicia | May 31, 2009 | Comments 180
Recently I was contacted by a writer for a rather popular magazine and was interviewed about my experience with Demand Studios. I won’t mention the magazine as I’m not sure if my comments will be included in the final piece (If it is, I’ll post the link here). The interview gave me the idea for this post.
I felt it fair to create an open post for Demand Studio editors. There’s been lots of comment activity from freelance writers for Demand Studios, but the editors have not been represented. Some writers are very happy and others, including myself, express frustration at the editing process. I would love to hear from a few of the Demand Studio editors.
Writer Frustration
From my own experience, my frustration with Demand Studios stems from two areas:
- Some of the editors appear to be unfamiliar with the article subject matter. As a result, they request rewrites that would not be necessary if there was a familiarity with the topic.
- On many occasions there are conflicting edit requests. Sometimes there’s a direct conflict with the Demand Studio writers guidelines and other times the rewrite requests contradict instructions required by another editor. Not being totally sure which editor will receive the article, Demand Studio writers sometimes feel it’s a crapshoot whether or not their work will be approved when they click the ‘Submit’ button.
Open Communication with Demand Studios
In an attempt to keep this post open and non accusatory, I won’t go into things such as edit review time, title availability and other issues that can crop up from time to time with any freelance writing arrangement. After all, we’ve all had to deal with software glitches and fluctuations in work load.
I believe the major frustration (and if I’m wrong, my readers will correct me), is that the editing process leaves many Demand Studio writers scratching their heads wondering if some of the editors are fully familiar with the writer guidelines and wondering why there is such a lack of uniformity when it comes to article rewrite requests.
Demand Studios Freelance Writer Cattle Call
I’ve noted that Demand Studios frequently post ads looking for freelance writers. It seems to me that if the communication or ‘training’ so to speak between the current editors and writers were better, more freelance writers would stay and the need for new writers would diminish.
In today’s economy, writers are looking to remain loyal to paying customers. I think a few tweaks here and there would help to develop a long lasting mutually profitable relationship between Demand Studios and their existing freelance writers and editors.
Comment Invitation
I look forward to input from Demand Studio editors and writers. I know some writers are very passionate about their dealings with Demand Studios and I ask those writers to use their stellar writing skills to convey the point without allowing too much venom to spew forth.
Filed Under: Demand Studios • Freelance • Legitimate • Opportunities • Writing
Hello, I’m new to posting here but I am impressed with all the information about writing and the commentary about the various sites. Thank you.
This is what Richard Rosenblatt does. He buys up websites, reworks the technical site, fills the sites with content and resells the product. (He also has a website parking business–totally independent from the content sites–that is jointly owned with Pluck.) The Demand Studio attempt at “professional editing,” providing one grant a month for a writer, giving kids texts to First Book and issuing a scoring rubric is mere smoke and mirrors to make the product legitimate in the eyes of the potential buyers. Demand Media needs content (not articles or writing pieces) and is loading up the sites. Formerly excluded eHow writers are now allowed to post three to five articles and editors have the option of an immediate cut for this group, if the writing is not worth an editing attempt.
Demand Media has hired a major marketer to put the product in the best light and has the interest of Goldman Sachs (the same GS of government bailout fame).
Info on the package and the potential sale price of $1 billion (yes, BILLION) is here:
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-amid-reports-of-possible-ipo-demand-media-adds-guber-james-to-board/
You probably already know this, but Rosenblatt was one of the co-founders of MySpace (sold to News Corps for $580 million in 2006). The spin maven hired to mold Demand Studios’ image said, “Part of that goal is to move Demand from being referred to more often than not as a content farm or factory to a media company respected by the media and recognized by more advertisers and marketers as valuable.” (quote is in the article posted above)
Makes you feel warm and fuzzy when you’re churning out quality work for a company posting multiple calls for content for diseases that aren’t even recognized by the National Institutes of Health.
I can’t help enjoy the ironic pairing of Goldman Sachs and Demand Studio.
I call it “pulp content,” not writing. It’s up to each of us to decide what our writing “soul” is worth.
New Writer, I hear what you’re saying but sometimes folks write for Demand Studios because they have to pay the rent.
That’s good advice Astrid. Yeah, I’m definitely not taking them very seriously at this point. All you can do is your best and since they cannot make up their minds what they want it’s not really all that surprising that they are losing good writers whether through their own ineptitude, or because they are letting them go. Yes, they are getting a very bad rep.
Andrea,
I feel for you but it so does not surprise me that they gypped you for $300. That sounds like something they would do. You would think they would be able to go and look at their bank records and see that the check never cleared and cut another one. Personally, I see them tanking at some point because sooner or later all these bad business practices are going to catch up with them and when they do it’s going to be bye bye DS. It may not happen for years but I predict it will happen.
I m so sorry that you both had bad experiences as well. It seems to me, like any company , they often get too big too fast and loose site of what they need and want. I have noticed a large trend of being ” laid off” with abrupt letters and then Mr. Lally loosing control.
I am wondering however, is there a way to compete? You know what they say, if you can’t join em’, beat em’?
So, with all of the knowledge and experience that we have collectively here, is there a way to start a content business or perhaps get together and create our own content website like Bukisa, Mahalo, Love to Know, etc. ?
It’s just a thought.
Julia
I wrote for DS for a short while. At the end of the day, I learned that it’s best just not take them too seriously.
I get the sense that they *already* have a bad reputation.
Gina, I worked for DS from day one as well, a year before they got the online interface, back when they used to mail checks. They have been incompetent from day one. They still owe me $300 from back then that I have long ago given up on getting. They kept telling me the check was in the mail. They kept horrible records.
I keep trying to go back and write for them now… but can’t muster up the energy to do so. After 10 years writing online, I think they treat writers horribly.. they don’t even know what they want.
Now with the ehow change… I have given up… I don’t expect to keep getting my ehow revenue very long.
Hello Julia,
Don’t feel bad at all. I just got canned by DS myself. I had been with them since 2006. This was before they even had an online platform and when they used to mail you checks! That tells you how long it has been. All of a sudden in January I got an email that my portfolio had been gone over by a copy editor and they didn’t like my intros supposedly too generic and supposedly I wrote long too long of sentences. They said they were going to give me an opportunity to improve. So I read and re-read all the materials they asked me to, keep in mind I pretty much knew this stuff by heart after nearly 4 years of working for them. But I took what they said into account and made changes accordingly. Well a month later a different copy editor looked at my portfolio made the same complaints and dropped my cue down to 5 at a time. She complained that my ratings hadn’t gone up and my rejection ratio hadn’t gone down and according to her I wasn’t even trying. I had a problem with that because the ratings were only based on what I had done up until 6 months in the past and I told them so. For obvious reasons I didn’t like that. Still I attempted to comply I sent in an article for a CE to look at and edit which she did before I submitted it in through the regular channels. Now keep in mind my rejection ratio is very low 5% out of almost 500 articles. According to their own literature they don’t do what they did to me unless your rejection ratio hits like 20% I believe. Oh, and your rewrite ratio has to be 40%. My rewrite ratio was like 23%. Hm…..Got to wonder about those two. Anyway, I worked really hard and and my ratings came up pretty drastically and my 5% rejection ratio dropped a whole percentage. So….what do I get yesterday. You guessed it, an email saying I was being let go after 4 years.
I’m a Sr. Editor for a reviewing site, and a small e-pub. I’m a contract editor for another e-pub as well. I have published several books as well. Trust me I know my grammar, structure etc. I’ve also been successfully writing articles for other clients for the last 4 years as well and not ever received these kinds of complaints.
Anyway Julia, I suspect it really does not have anything to do with us but rather that they’ve got some very bad CE’s at DS that have moved up the ladder and are now targeting writers. It’s really sad because I suspect that eventually they are going to have a very difficult time finding writers willing to write for them. They are starting to get a bad reputation.
Also, I suspect that if you’ve written articles for them under the e-how platform that you are now receiving residual income from that these articles are going to disappear as is the income. It’s just a prediction on my part but I’ve begun making sure I have copies of all my articles there so that all that work isn’t lost if they decide to pull them. Just a thought to everyone here who was writing for them under the e-how platform. I simply no longer trust them.
Julia, I’m sorry to hear about what they did to you. It hardly sounds fair.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m sure many of my readers will take heed.
Julia,
You might try Associated Content. I haven’t done any work there, but they do a combination of a small upfront payment (for some articles) followed by payment for the number of views you have (for all articles). There is a thread on this site about Associated Content. Some writers do quite well there.
I don’t know about all the sites you list, but I know Xomba only pays if you have a Google Adsense account. You will need to qualify for one if you don’t have one. There are directions on the Xomba site. To reach payout on Adsense you have to reach $100. That is going to be a long time if you are just writing at Xomba. It isn’t a big money maker for most people.
As to subject matter, recipes aren’t considered a good bet for making money. There is a glut of them on the Internet and when people are looking for a recipe they just grab one and go. There are plenty of places to post recipes, but you’re unlikely to make much money that way. I don’t know a lot about crafts, but I suspect that would be a better focus for you. You might also brainstorm about other subjects that you might be able to cover.
I Agree., but it was a way to pay at least the water bill and phone bill. And I have a few other outlets where I sell patterns on lulu and doctoc for some of the newer ones.
DS just allowed me to do residual. Here is a kicker last night, I had 5 articles in que and 3 were accepted within minutes, 3 no rewrites 2 are still in review.
I am writing the sample for textbroker. With all of the places I am at now I should be able to make my 80 dollars a month, I hope.
julie
A few weeks ago, I had a nasty experience with a Demanding Studios CE. This person demanded that I rewrite an article by adding multiple details that I knew to be unnecessary. Struggling to comply, I wasted two days rewriting the article. When I resubmitted the article, the CE accepted it within a few hours, but made made his (or her) own sloppy rewrite by discarding almost all the details I had been required to add. Though I have continued writing for DS, I’ll never attempt another major rewrite for any of their CEs. Better wasting a few hours instead of a few days.
Penny, I’m sorry to hear about your experience. I’ve been writing for Demand Studios for three weeks and just got my first rejection. I’m appealing it, since I have 25 years’ experience in the field that the article is about and the CE’s stated reason for the rejection reveals his/her obvious lack of understanding of the legal procedure described in the article. My CE was polite (though incorrect!), so at least I didn’t get the patronizing tone, but there’s no excuse for the CE who took that tone with you. I agree with Felicia – you might look into eHow. Though eHow is owned by Demand Media, it’s a very different site; the community is friendly, and you can build a residual income there. In any event, trust me – you’re not alone in your experience with Demand Studios. Many people complain about the CEs – and now, from my own experience, I’m beginning to understand why.
.-= Fujoshicat´s last blog ..How to Stop Passive Writing =-.
Thank you for your comment on Textbroker, I never heard of them, but I will look into it after I post.
I have over 29 years experience in writing for crafts and hobbies magazines. I am never sure if I am a technical writer or an instruction writer. Anyway my main source is writing for magazines. I began writing for e-how back in July of 2000 when they were first starting, and then when they changed hands they took my articles, dumped my byline and I lost out on 45 articles.
I still write for e-how under my original account and earn a really small residual income.
I have to agree completely that they do take advantage of writers and that is sad. I have been checking out the “bewares” boards and while DS is glossy, the amount of dumped writers is growing, and those is not good for Mr. Richard Lally, chief editor.
I found out from someone else that if you challenge a rewrite or protest a rejection you get flagged big time. If you post in the forums, you are flagged for being a troublemaker or incapable of understanding a title.
If you leave little notes on your comments to the editors after you upload your flagged.
It is a situation of; do your work, do not do too much, keep your yap shut and you will do ok.
On the heels of this disaster, I was picked up by “Mahalo” and “Expert123”, “How to do everything” I am waiting on. “Bukisa”, and “Xomba” I have to get started on and I applied at “Love to Know”. But if you know anything about these companies as well, please let me know.
If anyone knows of other “pay for work” sites that focus on crafts, recipes or hobbies projects let me know, please.
I have to say you all have made me feel much better, and I am now hopeful that I might be able to make enough money to float a little bit. I was beginning to think I was crazy or maybe starting with Alzheimer’s because of the comments I received in the forums and from the editors.
DS is allowing me to finish the last 5 manuscripts and I intend to finish them so I don’t have a bad wrap of not finishing what I start.
Julie
Hey Julie,
Try applying to Suite 101. You can write about any topic you wish there, so your craft articles should be a nice fit. Check out the NJFM database. I have a few sites listed there.
As far as the behind the scenes flags on Demand Studios, I’m not privy to their inner workings so I can’t comment or shed any light on that. I tend to focus more on writing and on occasion re-writing for them.
Take Demand Studios for what it is. It’s a source of generating income, but as you seem to understand, it shouldn’t be your only source. When things are running smoothly with DS it’s a sweet little deal. However, when things aren’t running smoothly, it’s the last place you want to write for. I think we all have a sort of love/hate relationship with DS.
I think the key is to add them to your freelance writing arsenal, but don’t allow them to be your freelance writing arsenal.
Well
I did the revisions and guess what — as i feared, it was rejected. With it was a patronising comment saying that if i keep working at it my standards and writing skills might improve enough to have an article approved!! And all that work for $7.50 I wasn’t considered good enough to earn!
I have been a journalist and writer for 21 years and am now the editor of a magazine. I have written features for many magazines and websites and have had work published in national daily newspapers without revision. But maybe American standards are much higher than ours in Britain.
I feel thoroughly demoralised by the whole thing.
Oh Penny, I’m so sorry to hear the outcome, but for some reason I’m not surprised.
Don’t let the Demand Studio CEs get you down. You might want to read my post about the Color of the Rocks.
There are some very qualified CEs working at Demand Studios and then there are the ones like you describe here in your comment. One month I wrote about 100 articles on one particular topic. About 98 went through without a hitch until I came across one CE who didn’t like anything I wrote, the way in which I wrote it and my knowledge on the subject matter.
Since I had sailed through 98 articles I realized it wasn’t me, but the CE so I walked away from the two revisions and placed my articles elsewhere. It’s not that the American standards are so high; it’s just that some CEs are not nice people. Mean people with a little power become meaner people.
Do you currently have an account with eHow? If not, get one and start placing your articles there. You won’t get the up front pay, but over time the residuals are worth it.
In the meanwhile check out the NJFM Database. I list a few sites that offer up front payment options. Hopefully you’ll find something there that will work well for you. Unfortunately, most sites don’t pay like Demand Studios and that’s why we all keep going back to DS.
I wouldn’t throw in the towel with DS yet. Like most of us, we write, we get frustrated, we walk away and then…we go back and write for them again. Welcome to the DS merry-go-round.
I have read all this with interest because I’m from Britain and have just been taken on by DS. It’s taking me a while to get to grips with it and is rather time-consuming because I have to write everything in American English and try to use American references. I know it’s the same language, but sometimes it’s completely different!
My second feature came back from the copy editor with some rather “to the point” comments. It happens to be a subject that’s in my area of expertise and what they are asking is virtually impossible in the word count asked for. It would be impossible in a large book too!!
Should I go back and explain or try to do what they ask and fail completely, thus risking being rejected?
Any advice folks?
Hi Penny and welcome to the world of Demand Studios.
It’s tough giving advice in situations like yours. I’ve been there a few times and have handled each one a little differently.
First, I’d like to strongly recommend that you use a pen name when writing for DS.
Secondly, keeping in mind the pay scale for the article I’ve done the following in such situations:
1. When I’m in a feisty mood, I’ll explain to the CE why the change request doesn’t make sense and how it could potentially provide incorrect and/or incomplete information to the readers (this usually results in a rejection). On occasion I have successfully appealed the rejection but then I’d ask myself, “Who was the real winner at $15 an article?”
2. When I’m not in such a feisty mood (and realizing that I’m not using my real name), I do as the CE asks, take the $15 and move onto another writing venue.
Penny, it’s a tough call.
Julia,
Please don’t let this get you down. Many people are having a hard time finding work and I think Demand Studios may be taking advantage of that by treating their writers and editors as disposable commodities.
I know it must feel awful to be let go from something you enjoyed doing. However, there are other opportunities out there. Take a look at the thread here on Textbroker.com. A lot of people are happy working for them. You won’t make quite as much as you made at Demand Studios, but the stress level appears to be much lower for most people. And, they pay twice a month so you will have that confirmation you need and some cash right away. It appears that Textbroker sometimes takes a break in their hiring, so don’t be discouraged if you aren’t accepted right away. Just get your application in.
Then, take a look the residual income options in the NJFM database linked at the top of this page. Over the long run, you will probably make much more writing for residual (sometimes called “passive”) income. I’m suggesting that you find at least one place (Textbroker or another) where you get upfront pay to keep your spirits up with regular cash flow and affirmation that you can write. However, focus as much time as you can on residual income. There are sites like Suite101.com, eHow (owned by Demand Studios) and Hubpages where you can get your work online at no charge. They pay you a respectable percentage of the income from your writing. Learn about SEO writing (there is information about that on this site as well) so that you can get search engine traffic for your articles.
Later, you may want to create your own websites. However, the revenue share sites are a good place to get started since they have already done all the site design work and their sites are regularly indexed by the search engines. Just keep working as hard as you were working for Demand Studios. Only now, you will be working for yourself. Consider Demand Studios to have been training with pay for your writing business.
Hang in there! What Demand Studios does and what the economy does are out of your control. You can control your reaction, though. Be strong and get focused. People are succeeding at this. You can be one of them. Just tackle the learning curve and put yourself in front of your computer every day and do the work (Sorry if I sound like a self-help guru, but I really want to see you turn your situation around and succeed).
As of yesterday I wrote for DS, I was there for 6 weeks, and I really liked it, allot. It gave me pride after being out of work for 2 years.
I received a nice little email that because of my grammar (I use MS word 2006 and GINGER) was only midline they “ had to revoke my writing privileges permanently”.
I had a number of articles that were rejected because of small things here and there that with an extra rewrite could go through. And I thought Copy Editors worked with you, not flagged you told you to rewrite an entire piece and then ditch it. I have been writing for almost 30 years and never experienced such an editorial skewering.
I never plagiarized and never dumped after a rewrite request. So all in all if you look at the score card, it was above Par for my work for such a short time.
Also, as a warning, DEMAND has an insider policy of scorecards and limits rejections, but the writers will never be informed of that, it is not in any of the documentation at all that they send you. they never give you an inkling your on the chopping block with your first reject. It’s a once strike and your out event. Which is a shame because many, with just a second communication from the editor a second time would pass muster and get published.
I would work for them again since I know the rules and what is expected and the pay is really good for writers.
I’ve been writing for Demand for exactly one week now and the learning curve has been interested to say the least! I certainly have some (fairly minor) complaints about the site, but honestly it has been a lifesaver for me. I have an English degree but live in an economically repressed, backward area where there is NO value placed on the creative arts. I have been underemployed since I got here 2 years ago and unemployed for the last 6 weeks. I heard about Demand, gave it a shot, and so far it has worked out really well for me. I’ve had 10 articles published, no rejects, and several rewrites, most of which were reasonable requests. Right now this is my full-time job. I look at it as getting paid $15-$30 an hour, which is infinitely better than the minimum wage I’d been making in retail jobs. I love working from home, and I look at this as an entry-level position in the career field of my choice: writing. I think that it will eventually lead to more lucrative opportunities, and in the meantime I’m building up my resume and making enough to pay the bills. Just wanted to contribute my $0.02… I’m usually quite the whiner and I could go on at length about the crappy topic selection but right now I’m just so darn grateful for this opportunity!
.-= Morgan´s last blog ..Evening =-.
Morgan, I’m happy for you.
I’m glad you’ve found something to help in your current situation. Demand Studios is just a stepping stone, you’ll graduate eventually.
We all whine about DS, but it does serve a purpose.
I just recently was accepted by DS. Are all the titles as incredibly boring as they seem? I am having a hard time finding anything I could write. And so many of the articles seem to be automotive related. I write a lot about dogs and when I put in that as a search word, I come up with a bunch of titles like “How to convert your turbo engine….” Am I missing something here? The articles on eHow that have been contributed by DS are so much more interesting. I really wanted to get on at DS but can’t figure out where the good titles are. Linda
.-= Linda´s last blog ..Jan 21, Dogs, Mostly Mutts =-.
Congrats Linda.
Finding titles on Demand Studios is hit and miss. I just did a quick search since reading your post. There are about 3 pages of dog titles if you are willing to write Fact Sheets (they only pay $7.50 but the word count requirement is much less).
Sometimes you’ll find interesting titles and then there are times like now.
[...] http://www.nojobformom.com/2009/05/31/open-post-for-demand-studio-editors/ [...]
Hi Felicia. I’m Todd. Just discovered your blog a couple of weeks ago and have learned a lot from it. Thank you.
I am a new Demand Studios writer. It’s funny, with only a handful of submissions under my belt, I’ve already experienced some highs and lows. Nothing terrible, nothing elating. It’s simple writing that pays, I need money, so I’ll keep doing it for as long as I need to. I’ve made enough in a week to cover a couple of bills and am sure I’ll do better as I get used to working this way.
Like many writers I’ve known, my brow sometimes furls at my dealings with copy editors. That’s natural. Given that I worked as a professional copy editor for more than a decade, though, followed by additional years as an assignment editor and newsroom manager, I think I have a decent perspective on it.
Good copy editors ought to get ticker-tape parades once a year. If they do their jobs well, few people notice. If they screw up or simply don’t pay attention, everyone looks foolish. One of the most important things I learned as a copy editor was to focus first on catching errors and getting them corrected. Everything else was secondary.
That’s knowledge I conveyed to a lot of less-experienced editors over the years, folks who spent an awful lot of time doing minor, unnecessary sentence reconstructions and missing true mistakes.
Now I’m at the other end of this dynamic, working from home and sending off my work to anonymous editors I’m not allowed to know anything about. My first Demand Studios copy ed was very helpful, setting me straight on some points of style I need to follow for all the how-to articles.
The latest one was an eye-roller. A rewrite notice nitpicked a sentence that used the word “is” twice and a couple other minor things.
Meanwhile, I MADE AN ERROR. My instructions stated, “Repeat steps 1 and 2 if necessary.” I should have said to repeat steps 2 and 3, and this should have been obvious to anyone paying attention.
The mistake was entirely mine, I’m responsible for it. I realized it soon after I resubmitted the article with the requested rewrites, but I couldn’t call it back to fix it and couldn’t contact the copy editor to point it out. So I sent a message to the help desk stating what had happened.
The article was approved with the error, so now I hope to hear back from the help desk soon about getting it fixed.
I’ve also been waiting four days for a copy editor to revisit another article for which minor but justifiable rewrites were suggested. I did the work immediately and sure wish (s)he would wrap up her/his end of things so I could get paid.
I’m certain the copy editors could share plenty of stories about writers, so I’ll restate this: Good copy editors are extremely valuable. I appreciate them and don’t envy them. It’s a tough, unappreciated job that I’d return to only reluctantly.
Thanks again for the blog, Felicia. I think I’ve only skimmed the surface of the valuable information you’ve posted here.
Cool and interesting to know that they upped the pay by $5/an article.
Livestrong used to be $20/article.
I agree that when you can write them fast and the rewrites make sense, it’s not a bad deal.
Still, though, the half hour articles can’t be counted on. I do find it makes more sense (and cents) to look elsewhere. Plus, the clips are worth more elsewhere.
.-= Wendy´s last blog ..I Just Lost $2 (and that is okay by me) =-.
I just started working as a DS writer, under Livestrong, which pays $25/article. For me its fun so far, I have a masters in public health,extensive experience in health and in medical school, so its like I am being paid to study! I do have many paid years experience writing for magazines, newspapers and journals. I pick topics I’ve just studied and write about it, so it also allows me to cement what I have written. I must admit the rewrites have been funny, and I can tell that the editor isnt an expert in health conditions. rewrites have only taken me max of 5mins so far, and I am currently writing about 2 articles an hour. This averages out to close to $50/hour, plus I am able to squeeze it into my day, and consider it study time. I dont know anywhere that will pay me $50/hour (I get them every so often)to write from home on a consistent basis!! I think DS has potential for good side income, and encourage anyone with a good background in health to apply for the livestrong section of it. Cant beat $25/article
Hey Felicia and Andrea:
Good point about moderation. That is really solid advice…
when you do come across those articles that write themselves it can be an easy $15 dollars.
I feel that in many ways, DS has the potential to be a great place for writers *and* editors.
If they would just hire solid writers, allow the editors to edit(and not be your grade 7 English teacher) I think they could have a good thing going.
Thanks so much for the support, Felicia. I am encouraged by all you put out there.
Re: moderation.
I have learned to go to the site… search for a few keywords of subjects that I know well… if they are not there, I move on. No more wasting my time arguing with editors if I don’t have the personal knowledge to back it up. It is a time-waster.
I just made the firm decision to stop writing there.
In July, when I started writing again, I got my Media Bistro subscription, re-subscribed to Writer’s Digest, began working on my own blogs, etc….
but also started to work at DS. What happened is that everything else went by the wayside as I wrote as fast as I could for “easy” money.
I would caution you against it if you do have experience. Jobs are out there, rates are going *up* and DS can become a trap.
Good luck and all the best!
.-= Wendy´s last blog ..I Just Lost $2 (and that is okay by me) =-.
Wendy, I know where you’re coming from with DS.
I had stopped writing for them for a while and then started back. I think moderation is the key.
I stick with topics that I know like the back of my hand so I don’t spend much time there. You’re right. It can be a trap if you don’t watch out.
Wow. I was laid off two days ago, and have been frantically searching for stopgaps. I had heard about Demand, but decided to really check it out this time, which led me here. Wow. Just WOW. I’ve been an editor for 27 years, and the idea of editing and fact-checking articles for three bucks–with all the aggravation it appears to entail–is less than tempting.
Thanks for this blog, it told me all I needed to know about this “opportunity.” I’ll steer clear.
Katherine,
I applied for a CE position on Dec. 19, received the test on the 22nd, and have received nothing at all since then. For copyediting, it still says “Under Review” on my page.
I wrote them more than a week ago now, and have received no response.
Has anything changed for you?
Has anyone else had this happen? Any suggestions on where else to apply?
First, I didn’t get monthly reviews. My first review came many weeks after I had edited the articles mentioned in the review–an artifact, I guess, of DS’s need for more staffing. When I started getting reviews, they tended to center on my inattention to some DS guideline (guilty; like you, Joe, I tried to do my best at editing and let the bureaucracy take care of the details). That plus, again like you, the comment that I should send more articles back for rewrite, to which I echo your feeling that the only reason to do that is when the original doesn’t make sense. I’d rather fix flawed manuscripts when I can.
As I’ve noted, all the hassles have led me to part company with DS and to devote my editorial efforts to my own clients’ work. Hope you fare better.
Ken, what were your monthly reviews like at DS? I just got my first and was a bit surprised at how demanding (no pun intended) it was. Most of the criticisms were qualified as “minor” things, but they went into great detail. At $3.50 per article, my attitude is to do the best I can and to earn $25 an hour or so, and if it’s not good enough, they can fire me. I only send articles back for rewrites when they just don’t make sense, and my review hinted that I need to send more back.
Hi Ken, I have enjoyed reading your posts and like your writing style. If you are interested in editing my book please email me at :
inaturalhealing (at) aol(dot)com. Thank you.
I’ve been writing for several months and have come to realize that the editors and writers are not on the same page. I have articles for rewrite or rejected because I didn’t follow the editor’s own guideline – not DS guidelines.