Writers, Pay and Blogging: Should Writers Write for Free?
Following the announcement that the ABC will be starting a blog attached to The Book Show, ‘The Book Show Blog’ with the makers of Voiceworks, Express Media, there has been a flurry of discussion after Lisa Dempster raised the issue that the project, with significant funding, will not be paying the bloggers that are to be given the 5 positions.
Ryan Paine and Elena posted replies to the issue.
I thought I’d attempt to piece together some my own thoughts on the issues; Is blogging less legitimate than other writing? Should writers write for free? Should publications expect writers to write for free? Ryan also raised a question regarding whether or not being paid is the only means to gain legitimacy and for you writing to be valued.
In a broad sense, I think writers should be paid, and under a more sane society, writing and other arts would be more valued and give those artists an opportunity to have enough time to pursue arts. I’ve expressed some related thoughts regarding writers and their social class.
As a Marxist, I see the problem currently as under a capitalist society, products of people’s labour are commodities to be bought and sold and their value is seen as based on the profit they produce. It contradicts logical ideas of value as there are plenty of things people do that are of value even though you can’t put a price on it.
So why don’t writers just write regardless of whether or not they get paid? There is other value as Ryan pointed out, you get exposure, you get your ideas out there, bylines give you credibility, writing is just plain enjoyable, people read your work, you get feedback.
I think part of the problem is that for writers to have enough time and the means to pursue their craft, if they’re not getting paid for writing, they have to work some other way, usually some dull and dreary day job, or if you’re lucky, some other area in the publishing industry.
But writers would be more able to write, and write better I think, if they were paid enough to not to have to do other work. That they could just write. This is something I’ve grappled with as a full-time worker trying to find the time to write and finish projects. I think writers should be paid, or have some way of surviving without having to work, whether this be through grants or whatever.
Of course the problem is that this isn’t done under a society driven by profit as a lot of writing doesn’t produce profit or value as capitalism sees it.
In the cases that writers write things that produce profit for those they write for, they should be paid and be paid fairly. Unpaid work is a problem not just in the arts and employers and companies often take advantage of young workers looking for experience. They are super-exploited, not even paid a wage that would still be below the value they produce.
In other cases, like The Book Show Blog, the writing may not produce monetary value but the ability to do this is subsidized by grants and funding. The ABC and Express Media are funded and as Lisa pointed out, they pay contributors doing other things, but not in blogging.
I think these bloggers should be paid because ABC and Express Media have the means to do so. And I think it should be encouraged that more money is invested in the arts so more artists of all mediums can pursue their craft whether or not it is seen to produce value that meets the criteria of capitalism.
I may not have answered all of the questions raised and probably repeated points made by myself before or they other people weighing in on this but I think I coherently expressed my thoughts on the issue. The dilemma of trying earn a living in an area that isn’t valued under capitalism is something I continue to think about and try to find a solution to.
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Great post Benjamin! I should point out that I don’t know that this particular project is funded, rather, that the ABC and Express Media rely on funding in general.
lisa´s last blog ..City lunching: salad edition
I do think it’s wrong for them to not pay their writers. Bloggers are just like any other professional writing staff they may have. They bring traffic to their medium, thus bringing profits, thus should be fairly compensated. That’s how business works. If I own a magazine (hypothetically) and I want someone to write a monthly column for me, I am looking at how they will make money for my magazine so I can make it better. If they bring me a profit by increasing my sales because people like their columns, I’ll pay them handsomely. If I get someone who writes a ho-hum piece and gets mediocre reviews, it’s a whole different story.
Personally, I’d love to be able to make a living through my writing. The beauty of capitalism is that if I work my ass off and really apply myself and produce things that people like, they will reward me. Hopefully one day I will get to that point. Until then, I’m happy to work my usual eight-to-five.
You have a lot to learn about capitalism, and I can say the same about my take on Marxism. Both have their pros and cons, but you have to look at those pros and cons from varying viewpoints. I love capitalism. It benefits me and allows me the freedom I enjoy – the freedom to create wealth for myself so that I can live a comfortable life. Marxism, at least here in the U.S., is favored by those in the wealth envy crowd who believe that no one deserves to have nice things because they themselves can’t afford to have them.
That’s why I like you though. Your views are so vastly different from my own. It fascinates me.
John Pender´s last blog ..Fiction Friday #134
If I write for a company, group, or any kind of organization – which ABC comes in the grouping of – I would fully expect a payment. Now, given that the kind of writing which is in question is opinions I am split as to the particular response I should have. Opinions would show up in blogs regardless, so they wouldn’t get paid anyways, but linking the opinions to a commercial site? I kinda see their point, but it still smacks of writer exploitation.
BigWords88´s last blog ..The Australian Government’s Internet Plans Affect Us All
John, but see the ideology of capitalism that if you work your ass off, you get paid well is a myth. They promise this so that you will work hard but janitors, cleaners and whole range of jobs require you to work hard but are some of the lowest paid. And writers, well we work hard writing but if it isn’t deemed to be worth a profit, it’s meaningless to them.
And as for Marxist being envious of wealth, we’re more than envious of the wealthiest in society. I’m outraged that those at the top who don’t work but make money off of others working for them, they can have wealth virtually through robbery whilst others starve. But I think everyone deserves to have nice things, a better standard of living, not to bring us all down.
I don’t think we’ve got the full picture yet. What quality of work is actually expected for this blog, and what sort of expertise is expected from the people who submit to it?
If the blog’s editors expect professional work from experienced writers, then it seems absolutely reasonable that writers be paid fair remuneration for their effort.
However, if the editors are willing to publish work from up and comers who are not yet writing at a professional level, then this seems fair. Those writers will most likely not find a market for their work at this point, and by being published on the blog, will gain valuable exposure and feedback to help them reach a professional standard sooner. It’s not much, but against the alternative of nothing at all, I’d happily take it.
And it should be remembered that the ABC isn’t actually making anything out of this venture. By running this online project it actually costs them money that is not made back with any sort of revenue.
At the end of the day, the writers won’t get much. But the ABC is actually losing money in order to give them this opportunity, so to suggest exploitation seems massively unfounded. It may not necessarily be the best idea ever, but I have little doubt it’s been put together with good intentions. And if the workload for the authors is too great to justify the exposure and feedback they’re getting, they can always just quit – it’s not like they’re losing their livelihoods or anything.
Jie, I think it’s a bit simplistic to say ‘the ABC isn’t actually making anything out of this venture’. Although there might be no cash income from the project, it is a good marketing exercise, and will no doubt experience benefits such as increased reach and audience.
I agree that the program has been put together with the best intentions and will be a great opportunity for many emergings.
lisa´s last blog ..City lunching: salad edition
I agree with Lisa, and didn’t think of other revenue ABC gains from this, like marketing and generally good kudos from the writing community for doing this.
But I did also point out that some writing is funded, and should be, regardless of whether or not it makes a profit, and that includes funding the writers. I think ABC falls under this.
Why should the workers running the website, the workers running the radio show, or workers running a variety of things get paid and not the writers that actually produce the content, regardless of editorial input. They still labour for the organisation.
This is a tough and enduring issue for all of us blogger/writers, me included. I often feel as though I put the ‘free’ into ‘freelance’ and have spent all of this year doing a weekly spot on an ABC station (not my local one) – that even had it’s own ‘call sign and intro’ but didn’t get paid for it. I was fine with that because it was just half an hour of goofing off and gave me some experience dealing with live radio and callers, but am now at the situation where I’d dearly love to be able to earn something from blogging and/or radio.
There are more and more people who read and enjoy blogs and it’s certainly given me a lot more access to talent, views, ideologies, humour and imagination compared to what I can find in mainstream media, TV, radio etc. At least in the blogsphere (with the exception of ‘celebrity’ blogs) it doesn’t matter which AFL player you’re shagging, what reality TV show you appeared on or if you were caught climbing out of a limo without any knickers on.
Advertisers (sorry Benjamin, but capitalism still rules the roost here) will gradually catch on – measuring real traffic and what kind of traffic/readers a blogger gets will soon be more important that who watches what lame telly repeat during the summer holidays.
Geez, I’m not even sure what point I was trying to make in relation to your blog, Benjamin – I think a second coffee might be needed….
Kath Lockett´s last blog ..
Kath, thanks for your comment.
The point you raise about advertising is interesting. Certainly, capitalism unfortunately does dominate at the moment but I think blogging and online media has been a bit of a struggle for advertisers, which is why Murdoch and Co. have been pushing for this unworkable model of paywalls and making readers pay.
I don’t think I have anything against people earning money off of advertising on their blog on principle, but in my experience, you have to getting a lot of traffic to earn anything off it and then you’re back into being exploited because Google tends to make a lot more money off of advertising than you do.
“Although there might be no cash income from the project, it is a good marketing exercise, and will no doubt experience benefits such as increased reach and audience.”
That’s fair. I still don’t think it’s too much of a concern though. The ABC expands its reach and the authors expand theirs. And to be published on a blog advertised nationally on the ABC gives a ton of exposure. If that doesn’t get you noticed by the publishers, nothing will.
Don’t get me wrong, I completely empathise with writers for how obscenely hard they have to work for the meager earnings they make (if any at all). However, I really do believe this is a commendable effort, given the limited resources available to the ABC, to try and redress that. It may not work, but give it a chance and see what comes of it. Just because something’s not absolutely perfect, that doesn’t necessarily make it bad.
See I think ABC’s lack of funding is an argument why institutions like the ABC need to be funded more, not why they should not pay a certain section of their workforce.
I still can’t help but thinking it would be harder to not pay people doing other jobs for the ABC like the website administration and people take advantage of writers this way.