The ones I see complain about being underpaid are the ones who take two hours to compose a $15 article. Even at THAT rate, it beats delivering pizza in dark neighborhoods!

They aren’t a scam. Anytime you work for someone, they make more money than what they pay you. I’ve never been hired by a poor person.

If you align your time right and use the proper techniques, you can make $60 an hour without knowing next to nothing about the selected titles. I did it. I had no choice but to find a way to make it happen when the recession hit. Within 6 months I paid off most of my debt, making $1200 a month working 2 hours a night, 5 nights a week. I had a full time job, family, etc. If I didn’t have the Demand Studios opportunity, I definitely would have been delivering pizza in bad neighborhoods. Instead, I DVRed my favorite TV shows and got focused. The only advantage I had over most writers was that I could type more than 50 words per minute. Other than that, I am a Joe Shmo.

So if you don’t like writing for them, stop crying and leave. If you want to write faster, e-mail me and I’ll give you some info. Other than that, Demand Studios is one of the best opportunities out there to make extra money.

Paul Bright

John, you are the second person to state that writersweekly only wants to cause controversy. I agree with you. They really go to great lengths to cause doubt in peoples minds. Why do you think this is? Could it have something to do with Angela being the owner of Booklocker?
.-= Rose´s last blog ..How to make Snowmen Soup- Christmas Crafts =-.

People who can’t accept the internet writing world and “lower” pay by their pre-internet standards need to move on to a new field of work.

Full disclosure: I’m biased. I co-own a fledgling content mill and have written a lot of cheap content over the years as PART of my overall approach to doing business.

The trick, as you point out, is making an informed decision. If you’re doing something that produces an adequate return for YOU and you’re engaging in the work aware of the opportunity costs and alternatives, so be it.

There’s room to make DS and even cheaper options work–if that interests you and matches up with your skill set and preferred approach.
.-= carson´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.

Thank you for letting me know. When I used to pay for articles about seven years ago, my rate of $25 an article had me ranked as one of the highest paying sites on the web, and almost all of the articles I got were 600-800 words.

That’s terrific. I’m assuming you are a very fast writer.

I actually like the fact that DS has stringent editorial guidelines (and strict editors); it shows that they do care about the quality of the work that they publish, unlike many content mills. Editorial oversight is a GOOD thing–it lends credibility to our articles. There are 800 copy editors working for DS right now and of course there will be some inconsistency, some misunderstandings and occasionally rudeness; editing is not an exact science, and people are…well, people. Sometimes people are very nice and sometimes they’re not – that’s life. DS has been very quick to apologize, publicly in the forums, when an editor has crossed the line and been disrespectful a writer.

My current statistics show that I’ve abandoned four rewrites since I started, three because the help desk didn’t respond in time and one because even with their response, I didn’t think I could satisfy the editor. Again, we need to remember that DS is a client and not an employer; things like that happen when you freelance. I posted the articles elsewhere and have made money from them, so it’s not like it was even a total loss. The upside is that I’ve NEVER had to chase them for a payment, unlike some of the higher-paying clients I’ve had. My pay has been off only once, and it was promptly corrected on the next deposit.

I should also add that I was fortunate enough to be invited to Santa Monica along with Barbara and several other creators to meet with the executive & editorial teams. They were all genuinely interested in our feedback and I’ve already seen changes implemented based on some of the issues we raised during the meetings. No client is perfect, and DS has their faults as well, but I honestly feel that the company does care about their creator base; today a writer posted on the forum that she received flowers from Demand Studios after they read her post about her son being injured in a car accident. That’s unusual for any client, even more so for a “content mill.”

People complain about Demand Studios as though someone is cracking a whip at their back and forcing them to write there. The fantastic thing about freelancing is that if your personality clashes with a client, you can drop them and move on to another!