you can’t pay your rent with “the unique platform and reach our site provides”

A very nice editor at Huffington Post contacted me yesterday, and asked me if I would be willing to grant permission for the site to republish my post about the seven things I did to reboot my life.

Huffington Post has a lot of views, and reaches a pretty big audience, and that post is something I’d love to share with more people, so I told the editor that I was intrigued, and asked what they pay contributors.

Well, it turns out that, “Unfortunately, we’re unable to financially compensate our bloggers at this time. Most bloggers find value in the unique platform and reach our site provides, but we completely understand if that makes blogging with us impossible.”

I translated this on Twitter thusly:

This set me off on a tiny bit of a rant:  

I’m very lucky to not need exposure or “reach” or anything like that, at least not right now and not this way. I’m also very lucky to be able to walk away from things like this because I believe it’s the right thing to do. If I’d offered this to Huffington Post for nothing, because I hoped they’d publish it, that would be an entirely different thing, because it was my choice.

I don’t know what the going rate is for something like this. At six cents a word, which is SFWAs lowest professional rate for short fiction (not a perfect comparison, but at least something to reference that’s similar), it would be $210. That’s not nothing, but it’s not house payment money. Maybe I should have just taken their fabulous offer of exposure?

I don’t think so, because it’s the principle of the thing. Huffington Post is valued at well over fifty million dollars, and the company can absolutely afford to pay contributors. The fact that it doesn’t, and can get away with it, is distressing to me.

The exchange I had with this editor wasn’t unpleasant, and I know that she’s doing what her bosses tell her to do. I don’t blame her for the company policy. If I’d brought this to Huffington Post and asked the site to publish it, it would be an entirely different situation, I think, (I already posted it on my Medium account, anyway), but this is one of those “the line must be drawn here” things for me. I don’t know if I made the right call, but I do feel good about standing on principle, and having an opportunity to rant a little bit about why I did.

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947 thoughts on “you can’t pay your rent with “the unique platform and reach our site provides””

  1. “Huffington Post is valued at well over fifty million dollars, and the company can absolutely afford to pay contributors. The fact that it doesn’t, and can get away with it, is distressing to me.”

    This part is what sticks in my craw. It is absolutely the principle of it. Words don’t always come easy and writing is work and if you make a living from your words, then you need to be paid, one way or another. Whether you enjoy writing it is an entirely different matter and doesn’t come into it.

    1. Yes, writing IS hard work. For those of you who think it’s only fun and games, try writing a 75,000 word story, bashing your brain to make it interesting & intelligent enough to sell, then querying it to 15 publishing houses and spending anywhere from two to four years doing it. When 15 rejections come back, even though you worked your heart out and did copious amounts of research, editing and revising to hone it to perfection, you’ll understand what a thankless and heartrendingly difficult job it is.

  2. We live, unfortunately, in a society that often pays the person who frames a picture more than the artist who painted it. There is real joy in the act of artistic creation and many are prepared to exploit that fact, arguing that merely giving that person a platform to share it is sufficient compensation–and sometimes it really is. Artists do what they do naturally and they just as naturally desire to share it. These feelings say something wonderful about us as a species. However, there is something very disturbing about often artists are exploited in this way. As you point out, $0.06/word would have meant a $210 payment. I don’t know how large Huffington’s word count is from “free” sources, but let’s estimate high and say it’s about 200,000 words per week. That’s $12,000 per week. It seems to me that a company with $30 million in annual earnings (http://nyti.ms/1LCPLcn) could afford that to provide a minimal level of dignity to those who provide its content.

  3. Your absolutely right WW. I am a Photographer, and frequently Photogs are propositioned with the same incentive of exposure. I sometimes imagine if the tactic would work with my Mechanic; “Hey, I don’t have any money for that rebuilt tranny, but I will tell all my friends about you”…

    1. I read tarot cards and in the past have given massages, reflexology treatments etc. a great line people give out is “you can hand out business cards…”

  4. a fantasitc point you raise, blogs such as these have staff who get paid, yet they collect “free material”? from bloggers in exchange for ‘exposure’
    but you are spot on, we all have bills to pay and we have to pay for resources, they should too.
    at least something material, like the majority do every day.
    Well said, Well said.

  5. As a college adjunct professor I was paid by one institution 100bucks a week for 30hrs worth of work… You know how many degrees I needed for it? I left after the first semester. It is simply ludicrous. Large institutions eat people and don’t feel sorry for it.

    1. Asking a writer to produce a piece without compensation is insulting, but what the editor should have answered was, “We are offering you free advertising for your blog on Huff Post.” Not sure how much it would cost to have a full page ad run on AOL for an indefinite period of time, but I think it would be more than $200. If you think of it as barter, you make out on this deal.

  13. “The line must be drawn here.” Wil Wheaton quoting Star Trek (hopefully intentionally). Day made, ’nuff said.

    2. He will make them pay for what they’ve done?

      Or more like “He will make them pay for what he’s done”?

  14. It’s unethical to give work away for free…it devalues the industry and undermines those making a living. Huff Post is profiting from the work of others…that is troublesome!

  15. I’m a self-employed videographer in the middle of flyover country. About 10 years ago I got a call from the producers of the Maury Povich show asking if I could shoot an interview segment with a couple about 50 miles from here. I was told that the pay consisted of an on-screen credit. “We can’t pay you , but think of all the publicity you’ll get”.
    I told her that I didn’t care about credit, and frankly I’d probably rather not have people know that I had anything at all to do with that show. “Do you work for credit in lieu of a paycheck? Will your landlord accept a credit instead of cash for the rent? My rate is such-and-such, take it or leave it.” She hung up, but called back again a few days later and agreed to pay me my going rate.

  17. You made the right call!

    I would rather write for free on my own terms then write for free to the benefit of a multimillion dollar company.

    1. For my professional career ~ I was an Interior Designer. Complete with a showroom & custom sewing workroom. For the most part, back then, I was actually paid for my Time & Talents. Had a few clients who … I fired because they thought they could Use me. Now that I’m not in that field, I love to knit, crochet & sew, along with some other cool crafts. But I don’t have the same ‘high-end’ clientele. I’ve had people want me to make various items … offer me a pittance … I say NO. It’s insulting. I’ve done my craft(s) for decades and have a lot of experience. So now ~ what special things I make are given away to special people. I’ve been at various functions where there’s a Silent Auction and kind people have donated Home Made items ~ beautiful quilts, etc. What goes on the auction sheet is SAD. Somehow there’s a Missing Link between all the ‘professionals’ to appreciate and properly compensate those of us who know how to ‘do’ things they cannot. They don’t give us their time for free. Why should us ‘non-techy’ people give away our talents for free. Yet ~ those who make the so called Big Bucks sure don’t mind going to a music concert or art gallery. So for now ~ I’m a Grandma. Love making wonderful things for my grandkids and close, cherished friends. They are the ones who deserve to receive my time, talents & efforts as for everything I make ~ I am thinking of them with every stitch.

      1. nods in agreement A crafter is worth their hire, and it should be up to the crafter (in whatever medium) to decide about giving their work away for “exposure” or whatever reason. It is NOT the role of the buyer to assume such. To give an example of the flip-side of this, I’m a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. This last weekend, I attended an event where we had a masquerade ball. Alas, I didn’t have a mask. A fellow SCAdian loaned me a mask which went so well with my garb that I offered to buy it if she was willing to sell it. She refused and simply gave me the mask (and this mask would have proabably pulled down a price of at least $75 at a standard RenFest. I all but begged her to at least let me pay something, but she refused. THIS is how free service/goods should work: a free outpouring from the creator, not a callous demand from the consumer or middleman.

  18. This, and their well-known screwing of people when they went public, is why I try never to read their articles, even with Adblock on, to avoid giving them a single “vote” (page view). It’s one thing if you run a personal blog and ask someone if you can republish something because you liked it, but another when you have paid employees and a huge business. Damned hypocritical greedy capitalist pigs!

  20. Agreed it’s totally the bosses. I work for a multi billion dollar company and we literally cannot get a few dollar coloured pens (to draw on the company mandated boards that require them).

    Of course other departments can do whatever they want and seem to have unlimited funds.

  22. fox.com has had photos of mine posted for months with no credit. My requests to be given a photo credit or remove them have be ignored. I’m not going to hire lawyer. Its just not worth it. If needed another reason to hate Fox News – here ya go.

    2. Contact Pixsy.com, if there’s enough of a settlement to be had, they might do the legal legwork for you in exchange for a percentage.

  24. It extends to so many products and services. Most people would never dream of asking an employee to work for free, yet these same people will ask: artists,
    Musicians, writers, and in my case, professional speakers, to give away their work for free.

    Way to stand your ground Wil!

  25. If you think HuffPost is bad, you should see how Wikipedians treat content creators. Not to mention their “good friends” at Google.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/07/macaque_monkey_selfie_wikipedia_copyright_carpetbagging/
    http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/latest/photo-news/photographer-goes-ape-over-monkey-selfie-who-owns-the-copyright-5054#dmD58xlI5dDCoMAX.99
    http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5132

    And BTW, the Wikimedia Foundation made $75 million this year. In donations.

  26. Here is a free contract you can use when someone offers “exposure” instead of pay. Workforexposure.com

  27. What allows HP to continue these practices are the weaklings that say yes. They trade their work for eyeballs. Good for you for standing up to big media. About time. We all need to stick together on this.

  29. Happened to me as a game journalist trying to get hired at a legit publication. I’ve since started working for myself. If I’m not gonna get paid, I’m gonna write for myself.

  30. I found this when facebook suggested this as a “people also shared” under a post from The Oatmeal where Huffington Post hyperlinked his entire new comic without his permission. He changed the source of almost all the images to an image of his hosting bill and a note about the importance of asking before hyperlinking. The final image was replaced with a doodle of a penis and a butt. I call that a win. They’ve since removed all images and linked to the original comic.

  31. If you work for free–or for too little–for anyone who should be paying you a fair wage for your labor, then you are helping the corrupt to gain more power to abuse workers.

    Don’t do it. Tell everyone you can about those who ask you to do this, so that others can choose not to work for them, or spend any money on their products or services.

    We have the power to end corruption by refusing to fund it with our labor or money.

    1. I don’t even take phone surveys. I ask them what they pay for me consulting on their survey. The person asking the questions gets paid, they sell the answers. So why should I give the answers for free. No takers on paying me yet but less calls do it’s a win.

    1. My husband was in the live music business for many years. He always treated his talent well. Some of the stories I have heard from musicians being EXPECTED to play for free curdle my blood. Here’s to hard work.

  33. So. Does anybody remember the visual impact of the Los Angeles Rioting and Looting? It was a mass hysteria, and apparently -a common human trait to jump in and loot…
    It appears that the groups at the top of our governmental Demockery are revving up their dirty little hands for a bit of looting, for themselves.

  34. Stand by your principles, Will. I am an animal behavior consultant and I get new customers through 1.) satisfied customers, 2.) veterinarians who have confidence in me, and, 3.) business cards placed at vet’s offices, pet store bulletin boards, and cards distributed through pet adoption agencies. OCCASIONALLY, if I am contacted by a non-profit pet adoption agency with a problem to solve, I offer to leash-train a rescued “yard dog” who was never leash-trained as a puppy, or to give a free class on correcting common feline behavior problems. I do this to make nice animals who need a little “help” more adoptable, and to keep pets with minor issues out of the kill shelters. I do it only for the animals’ sake. This has never brought me a single new customer. Otherwise, if someone wants me to make their OWN dog obey them, or correct their cat’s scratching-the-couch behavior, I have an hourly fee. (I do give seniors and students a discount).

    Anyone who CAN pay — and Huffington Post most certainly can! — most certainly SHOULD pay. The only people who benefit from “free samples” are food vendors at the point of purchase. I suspect that if a penniless self-help group asked permission to reprint your article to help recovering alcoholics or other people trying to start over, that you just might consider doing it out of goodwill. But that would be your choice, knowing that their resources are limited. Huffington Post does NOT need good will.

    When my husband was in the nightclub and live music business, he displayed student art from local universities, and allowed aspiring art students to have art opening nights, a free venue to display their work, and maybe even a chance sell their first painting. This both brought in business by having openings on otherwise slow nights (Monday/Tuesday) and gave aspiring artists a free place to be seen. We charged a modest cover at the door and distributed it among the artists (or individual artist) whose works were being shown. He NEVER took a commission, or charged a dime for display space. Free gallery space for a month? THAT is “good exposure,” and it makes me happy to know that several now-prospering artists hung some of their first work and sold some of their first paintings at my late husband’s businesses.

    For you to do the hard work of writing while HP makes buckets of money off advertising is preposterous. Getting paid? Pardon me, but, “make it so!”

  35. HuffPost: We’d like to publish a story you wrote!
    Me: Cool! What do you pay?
    HP: Oh, we can’t afford to pay, but EXPOSURE!
    Me: But, won’t you be profiting from this?
    HuffPost: well yes, but… EXPOSURE!
    Me: But, I have bills to pay too.
    HuffPost: But, you’ll be famous by having your blog post on our site.
    Me: I’m already famous.
    HuffPost: Look dude, shit rolls downhill, not money.

  41. I am EXTREMELY against Gateway sites, e.g. websites full of links to other peoples blogs, research, articles, and tips and tricks, as the administator is making a profit from someone else.
    Thanks for sharing with the rest of us. Huffington Post will no longer be benefiting from my clicks.

  42. It’s an easy message of course, made easier by people more popular. I laude the effort and message, but you really should have pushed it through a ghost writer for more street cred 🙂

    It happens to no-name photographers often – with no wiki, imdb page etc –

    Thanks for being our celebrity cause though!

  43. Thank you so much for saying this in absolute terms. I am so tired of meeting people who question why I charge for the programs I have created and honed over decades of study and years of presentation experience that hs been a continual process of re-tooling and perpetual refinement. This is so much more than a hobby. It is my chosen profession.

    What do I charge for?

    I present educational history programs in first-person. I have researched on this topic since I was in 8th grade. I’m working on a Master’s Degree in my field after spending almost two decades juggling undergrad classes part time with multiple low-level jobs and have spent all my “spare” money on research materials, research travel to distant archives, museums, and conferences, and have extensive supplemental education in niche topics related to my specific study. I have logged over 50,000 miles in solo road trips for the purpose of furthering my research. I drive a 13-year-old car because having my authentic reproduction 1890s costuming custom made by a professional clothing historian has cost nearly $10,000. Hell YES I “charge” for what I do.

    I will never get wealthy doing this work (and wealth isn’t my motivation) but I put nearly every waking hour into making my presentations as informative and enjoyable and historically accurate as possible. Yet many, many people and organizations want me to produce an article, or present a program for either zero compensation, “exposure,” or “a great recommendation.” Thanks but no thanks. I have plenty of references from professionals in the field who have paid me for my work. I don’t need “exposure.” I will keep driving that junky car with almost 200,000 miles on the odometer rather than work for free. And I will happily work for a little less than the regular rate for a non-profit organization that is dependent upon grant funding to bring professional educational programs to its patrons. But when corporations pretend they can’t pay, I pretend I am booked solid.

  44. Thank you for taking a stand on this. If I went to your house as a stranger and asked you to give me some of your stuff for free so I could use it for my business, you’d call me crazy.

  45. “Work for free, get exposure, then you will be famous enough to get a paying job, in an industry that is awash with free material from people working for free to get exposure so they can get a job..” wait, what? These “paying gigs”; do they even exist any more?

  47. I worked as a proof reader for different companies but also offered my services for revising academic work, from Bachelor thesises to dissertations (in German, not English). A lot of friends ask me to help them, but hardly anyone wants to pay me at least a small amount of money. Sometimes they offer to invite me for dinner – do they even think about how many hours it takes to read and revise their stuff? One acquaintance invited me to his wedding, I think that was his way to “recompensate”. Well, thank you SO much. I have to do the proofreading after my daytime-job – I now refuse to do it for free. Other friends wanted me to revise a complete magazine for them in a very short amount of time for absolutely no money. I refused, they found three(!) other people with obviously no skills – the magazine is full of mistakes. I feel some kind of schadenfreude about that. I’m a mean person.

  48. I know exactly how you feel. I’m a photographer and artist and I get people wanting to use my images that I spend hours planning, finding the model, shooting and retouching the image. Do they want to pay, Rarely! I also get people wanting me to shoot them or their event for free. Same old B.S. Creative people get screwed all of the time. You can see some of my work on Instagram @NSPART

    PS: We met years ago when you were in your teens at a party you ran off with my coat (you gave back though)…lol

  49. Over twenty years ago – I was working at a community channel and I had what I thought was a great idea for a series. I contacted a well-known performer that I had a personal relationship with and pitch them the idea and asked them to host.

    “Sounds very interesting – what’s the pay?”

    “Oh – there’s no pay, “I quickly responded without a second thought. After all – I thought – this is community TV. “But you’ll get a lot of exposure.”

    “You know what, Christopher? You can die from too much exposure,” he said without missing a beat.

    I never forgot that. And as a business owner myself now – I live by it.

  50. What’s more, Huffington Post actively takes money for up-and-comers to be able to post. It’s difficult to pitch something they would agree to post, but very often, an editor or contributor will get in touch with you, offering to post your article for a “modest sum of money”, which, in my experience, can range anywhere between $100 and $2000.

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