NaturalNews

Their tag line is “Natural Health, Natural Living, Natural News” and they are looking for citizen journalists to cover a variety of topics on healthy living.

They way it works

As a citizen journalist for NaturalNews you pick a “beat.” A beat is a topic. Check out their site to see the current list of available beats. In order to be successful at NaturalNews you’ve got to have a passion or strong interest in writing about health. Some of their currently available topics are on cancer prevention, food safety, prenatal nutrition and more. They don’t want opinion pieces. They want fact based articles so you’ll have to do your research.

You get a byline and bio on each article. Your bio may include links to your current projects or blogs (no affiliate links). Your article is then placed in their NaturalNews network which includes “several hundred other topic specific news sites.”

[smartads]

NaturalNews Payment Model

Payment is made directly through Google AdSense so you need to have your own account. They place Google Ads using your publisher ID in an ad above the fold before your article. You get 100% of the Google Ad revenue for your article.

In addition to your Google Ad, they place other ads on the page (you don’t earn from those).

As with all sites using the Google AdSense payment model, the more you write the better your chances of earning money. As a result, NaturalNews asks its journalists to write at least one article a week. You can always write more if you wish, but there is a minimum requirement of one piece a week.

Article Republishing Rights

They want original, non plagiarized articles that were not previously published elsewhere. They ask that you not republish your NaturalNews article on your own website for at least 30 days. After 30 days you can place it on your own blog or where ever else you wish to place the piece.

Where to Apply

Visit NaturalNews  to apply for a writing position. It takes them about 3 to 5 days to process the application. The interesting thing about the application is that it asks for information such as name, phone number, email address (public and private), byline wording and AdSense code, but I didn’t see anything about requesting a writing sample. Maybe the writing sample is something they request later on in the process (I didn’t apply).

The other thing that struck be as odd is the registration form is not secure. A secure page will have “https” in the URL or even display a little lock icon in the web browser but I didn’t see either https or the lock icon. It’s not a biggie since they’re not requesting anything super private (except a telephone number).

My Opinion

I like the site’s subject matter and NaturalNews does a good job of explaining what they’re all about and what they expect from their writers. I think I’ll put them on my “To Do” list.

I’d love to hear from anyone who has written for or is writing for NaturalNews.