I haven’t had time to write here for the past few weeks due to some new client projects, but this newest and final twist to the eHow scam deserves a quick note: After stringing writers along for months and denying that they planned to end the Writer Compensation Program, eHow just announced that they have done just that.
So you eHow writers have been invited to apply to Demand Studios if you want to continue writing for eHow. Many have already been automatically accepted into DS if they wrote 5 or more articles with a low rejection rate. Frankly, anyone who has a choice (meaning you have food in the cupboard and your mortgage or rent is covered) and willingly associates themselves with Demand Studios after the treachery Demand Media has demonstrated toward its residual income writers deserves the abuse they will undoubtedly receive as a result.
From the announcement, it’s not clear whether eHow will continue to pay residuals for existing articles. Knowing eHow’s track record, that would mean NO.
I warned you all before and told you that DM didn’t want eHow writers any more. So please take heed now and move on to an ethical company. Write for InfoBarrel, HubPages, Suite101 or Examiner or another proven site.
And don’t look back or you’ll turn into a pillar of salt, and don’t say that Savage Sites didn’t warn you.
As soon as I can, I will publish a post detailing how Demand Media rigged eHow to maximize their profits in anticipation of this very day by scamming writers. In the meantime, here is the text of their “surprise” (not) announcement:
|
Important Announcement |
Demand Studios is now the exclusive writing platform for eHow.com.Hi [Member], Today, we are announcing that Demand Studios is now the exclusive platform for writing new articles for eHow.com. This change will not impact any of your existing articles or payments currently affiliated with the Writer Compensation Program (WCP). We would like to invite you to apply to become a Demand Studios writer. We are committed to providing a quality experience, and Demand Studios gives eHow.com’s writers a more robust publishing platform including copy editors, quality assurance and a number of great, new resources for the writer community. We look forward to hearing from you. How does this impact you?Demand Studios has a rigorous writer admission process to ensure quality. Some writers were pre-approved because of their track record with us. Quality is paramount, and our criteria for accepting eHow.com writers into Demand Studios were based on writer activity level and moderation history. By the end of March 2010, you should have published five or more articles, of which at least 80 percent were accepted. Also, you must have been a member of the WCP. Having written 1 articles with a 100% acceptance rate, you did not qualify. However, we want to learn more about you, which is why we would like to ask you to apply to Demand Studios. Your application will allow us to see more of your work and to comprehensively review your writing. What are the benefits?Demand Studios now offers the benefits you are accustomed to on eHow.com, with added flexibility. You can suggest your own titles and write articles that pay monthly on a residual basis. In addition you can select assignments that pay upfront. The combination of these options gives you the opportunity to make more money. You choose what articles you write and how you get paid. Next Steps:
Thank you, The eHow Team |
I was automatically accepted to DS under one of my eHow accounts. I’ll have to check all of my emails to see if all of my eHow personas were accepted… Wouldn’t it be a riot if some of them were rejected? ha ha ha
The email I received didn’t tell me how to create my new DS account or anything, not that I had planned to continue with Demand Media anyway. I hope the process for closing my DS account is not going to be a pain in the you know what.
Another day, another headache with eHow/DS/DM/Hillclimb/whichwhatwho
Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’ll close your account and delete all your content as soon as you request it.
Just as soon as they start attributing images properly and stop speaking out of their you-know-whats.
Thank you for following this all for the last few months, Kim….even when it wasn’t “popular” to do so…..I fully expected you to be blasted by those who stood to loose the most by this scandal surfacing and being unveiled….
I think some fail to realize just how BIG this is, though.
This site is one of the foremost ranked websites in the world, with millions upon millions of monthly page views, as well as, I had heard it estimated that the site itself brought in well over a $1,000,000 in monthly revenue (not quite Facebook, but not too shabby either)….
I’d have to dig for more concrete numbers, however, they are really quite influential…and, as a “leader” in this industry, they should be acting like a “leader”….
This reeks of so many historical trends that it’s hard to just capture everything in one post….
I HIGHLY recommend that any readers of yours go back and familiarize themselves with your posts from the last 3-4 months…..
It is easy to brush people off as being crazy, at least until you go and familiarize yourself with the trends and issues that have led eHow to where it is today.
What has occurred today is VERY bad for writers.
In Kim’s defense though, she did give every AMPLE warning.
Thanks, Howie. What is so stunning is that eHow reps flat out denied they were planning to do something like this when asked by writers months ago. eHow deleted all proof of that from their site this morning, as eHow is wont to do, but fortunately, many of us subscribed to the forum RSS feeds and still have the evidence. Nothing like a little BAD FAITH to start the week off right with eHow-not-to.
You hit the nail on the head Kim, I tried my best to give them the benefit of the doubt but alas they didn’t deserve it.
It seems that all articles live on eHow currently will be unaffected for the foreseeable future but all new articles submitted to DS will be completely owned by them regardless of the revenue share option chosen.
I was auto-accepted into DS in my email and will publish a small handfull of articles there simply to see what it’s like (think curiosity) but all of my time will then be going to InfoBarrel, HubPages, Xomba, and personal niche sites. DS will not get a cut of my material unless I see very compelling reasoning otherwise, which I don’t expect.
Thanks for saying it how it is.
Thanks, Brian. I wish I’d been wrong. So many people were hurt by Demand Media’s bad faith practices on eHow, it’s a real shame. It’s as though DM doesn’t understand or care that there are real human beings writing their content.
eHow says the current articles’ WCP pay structure will be unaffected, but they also said their mirrored site was in the UK, they said they would compensate generously for stealing from writers, and they said very recently that they had no plans to do what they did today. All bold-faced lies meant to further betray and exploit their members.
Demand Media is not to be trusted, and woe to any writer who still believes and invests their time in such a shady outfit.
Just to give your readers a heads-up, as well, Kim….
I emailed Suite101 about 5 times, in the last few months, kindly asking what their revenue share arrangement with writers was….
They never got back to me. Poor customer service? An attempt to pull a veil over writers eyes like eHow? I’m not sure the reasoning behind not responding….
I was very professional in my emails.
Here is what their FAQs say:
“What is “revenue sharing” anyway?
We are in partnership with Google to display advertising on the Suite101.com website. Google supplies ads to our site based on inventory matching the keywords (purchased by advertisers) that appear in your material. This program is called Google AdSense and it “delivers relevant text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content. The ads are related to what your visitors are looking for on your site or matched to the characteristics and interests of the visitors your content attracts.”
Only Google knows how much revenue the ads generate when a visitor clicks on a link, but you get a share of the revenue whenever that activity happens. Google tracks every ad click and adds it to your balance. The more pages you have, the more ads appear and the more chances readers will click on them to earn you revenue. Some of our top writers earn $2,000 per month (every month!) by publishing hundreds of articles on our site.
See the tutorial called Where Revenue Comes From for more information.
Read more at Suite101: FAQ for Suite101 Writers http://www.suite101.com/writer_faq#2#ixzz0kFRZd8iN
………..im sure nothing could compare to what eHow did over the last few months, however, Suite 101 doesn’t ‘appear’ to be that transparent with revenue share distribution either…..
There is an inherent vagueness here with regard to just HOW MUCH writers are earning….
….on another note, the “Where revenue comes from” text above is hyperlinked, but one can’t access it unless they have a user account registered. This wasn’t the case the last time I checked their site a few months ago…it boggles my mind why they would require one to be a member before they can see this pertinent information…..
so…even though I’ve never written for them, I would advise your readers to tread cautiously….
……..and, another thing, transparency is a MAJOR issue…..
Sure, a website’s management can easily produce individual case studies of $1,000+/month in earnings, but without revenue share distribution transparency, who is to say that $1,000 month doesn’t come from a 20% revenue share?….
One thing is for sure, I am noticing case studies emerge on currently PR4 websites WITH transparent revenue share, that are comparable to the top earners on PR7 or PR8 websites WITHOUT transparency….
Good point, Howie. Suite has one of the better reputations in the industry, but they lose big points for lack of transparency. Writers on any site whose terms of service do not specify pay structure need to be aware they are at greater risk for a future eHow-style scam. Still, eHow’s method of using prepaid articles to compete against writer-owned articles was unique in the industry. I guess it’s a step forward that eHow has gotten all the inside info they need from residual writers’ analytics data and are now finished with that part of the scam.
Yup – they killed the WCP just like they said they would not. Expect a flux of former eHow writers to join sites where they don’t have to life with the stupid Demand Studios system.
For the record, I write for Suite 101 as well as eHow, and my articles have always done much better on Suite. The editorial team and writers seem to be the most professional and encouraging I’ve encountered.
Good to know, Rachel, thanks. And readers, visit Rachel’s blog for more info on writing for Suite101. Rachel publishes her monthly earnings, so it’s very informative.
Hi Kim,
I am confused by eHow’s math.
I joined eHow on March 15, 2010 and was notified today that I had to re-apply. I met two of their criterion (more than 5 articles accepted by the end of March and WCP approved) but according to them I only had an acceptance rate of 55%. 6 of 11 original articles submitted were accepted/published, 5 had a “pending approval” status as of March 31st.
As of today, 100% (all 11) of my articles written prior to the end of March have been accepted and published. 0% denied.
Additionally, I had been approved for the Writer Compensation Program (WCP) prior to March 31st.
My true acceptance percentage for the original 11 articles submitted prior to March 31st is 100%, which if properly calculated, would have met the final criterion.
Wow, this is frustrating!
Fortunately, based on reading your site, I diversified my channel and applied last week for an Info Barrel account. 5 articles submitted, each approved and published within 24 hours.
The market timing for Info Barrel is terrific!
If you know any of their management, please let them know that their biggest obstacle to membership growth near-term will be if they fail to properly staff for a likely spike in article submissions. Overstaffing now to ensure their approval process stays under 24 hours would be a strategic move for them this month as new members will want a good 1st impression of their site.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Regards,
Jim
Hi Jim, thanks for stopping by and commenting! I think your confusion may lie in the fact that what eHow calls “math” is no more math than the “UK” site was in the UK.
Demand Media has never told the truth about much of anything related to eHow, and they’ve gotten away with it, so why ruin a good thing by being honest now?
I’m glad you diversified, and I have to say, I have been hearing lately from several people who are seeing significant income surges on InfoBarrel. I expect InfoBarrel will be in six months what eHow could have been if they had added a pinch of integrity and transparency to their formula.
InfoBarrel management appears to be doing everything right, and they are aware of eHow’s latest maneuverings, so hopefully they are prepared for the inevitable influx of writers who prefer to retain the copyrights to their own content.
Two of InfoBarrel’s top writers are preparing to launch an InfoBarrel ebook and related guides, so stay tuned for that.
Thanks Kim and Rachel!
Before I write for any site, maybe it’s just me, but I always send emails if I have any questions….
One thing that kept me from writing for Suite is simply the fact that I was never responded to….
…and, my emails were very polite and professional…with what I felt was a legitimate question about revenue share….
Another good point, Howie. I haven’t written to (or for, though I was accepted by them) Suite101, so I can’t attest to their responsiveness. But I have written to one of InfoBarrel’s owners, Ryan McKenzie, with questions on at least three occasions, and received a prompt and informative reply each time.
Bless you for keeping copies of old eHow forum threads! Today, they just wiped out the thread that was *started* by a community manager to answer questions about the new change over.
My husband (another freelance writer) always says that if eHow is the sister site of Demand Studios, then eHow should be called “Un-Manned Studios” since no one is ever there to take care of business and answer real questions. (Yeah, he likes bad puns.)
I wish I could read the thread they just deleted, because someone asked how DS rev share compares to WCP rev share. The eHow employee assured us that DS rev share is more lucrative than the WCP program. Funny though, DS writers always say it’s the opposite. I guess they mean that DS rev share is “generous” in the sense that our UK compensation was “generous.”
Not than anyone probably cares for an update of my precvious comment, but my brand new account was declined for DS admission. For the same reason that Jim’s account was declined, eHow included pending articles in the calculus.
Can those guys do anything right???
@Rhea, wow. I love the “Un-Manned” Studios. It works on so many levels!
Exactly–eHow has its own dictionary, and “reality” is not in it.
I only have the forum threads I subscribe to, but if anyone needs one, they can email me or post a comment and I’ll PDF what I have and post it as soon as I can.
And yes, they probably CAN do things right, but they consistently refuse to. That way they can chalk up their devious tactics to technical glitches. There will come a day when the economy rebounds and Demand Media’s content becomes outdated, no one will write for them any more, and DM will end up in the toilet where they belong…no business can last by consistently acting in bad faith.
a correction, i just found the thread. Apparently they changed the forum so that you cannot see posts unless you are logged in.
DM wouldn’t have such a poor reputation online if they were (1) better communicators, and (2) not so stingy. $15 just ain’t gonna cut it for relinquishing all rights. Yes, $15 for 400 words is a better deal that what an outfit like Textbroker offers, bet TB doesn’t ask for well-researched articles with references. TB articles aren’t anything I would want to keep, and I can crank out 6 or 7 in an hour, depending.
DM reps keep carping about quality quality quality, but they aren’t willing to pay the going rate for real quality. It’s the top complaint ahead of inconsistent editorial standards. If I wanted to be a part of DS, I would have applied a long time ago. But I did my research and decided to stick with the WCP instead.
They want us all to get the warm fuzzies over some new “opportunity” when in reality they just cut our options in half. Blech!
A couple of points. I belong to a group of professional writers. When the topic came up, they don’t like ANY of these “content mills” as they referred to them. And I can see the point, while convenient (something I pointed out), it lowers the pay standard for all writers. It’s like sending jobs to some 3rd world country. And it’s viewed that these are just articles to generate ad-clicks, not to provide any actual useful or factual content. (Not that content isn’t useful–just that sites like eHow don’t care about content as long as they’re getting clicks.)
And look what’s happened (FAQ’s from AJ’s link): In addition to writing for eHow.com, writers can apply to write for a growing list of popular sites including Livestrong.com, Trails, AnswerBag and Golflink
So now they’re expanding the sale of low-cost content to multiple sites. And I see nothing that says how much they’ll pay for either flat-fee or residual articles. Also that the requested DS articles (for now) they are buying all rights. (I’m sure that will extend to the other sites.) How long before they stop accepting user articles…. You know that’s coming next.
I was one of those automatically accepted (oh, yay). I have no desire to write future articles for eHow or any content mill site. I need to look into this further to see if I need to pull down what I have or simply leave them an collect what residuals they earn.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Cheryl.
What concerns me most about this latest move is that Demand Studios is setting writers up for another bait-and-switch. Writers already complain that the longer they work for Demand Studios, the more pressure they get to increase the length of their articles without increased compensation. It’s obvious that DS will continue to demand more while reducing pay scales wherever they can get away with it.
I understand why many writers believe that others should stay true to the craft and avoid the content mills, but for those of us who have sick kids or elderly parents to care for at home, or who cannot find outside employment for any number of reasons, the flexibility of being able to write in half-hour increments, especially with the hope of long-term residual income, is the best (or only) fit for our employment needs.
In the end, the market will determine the success or failure of content mills. The consumer market will learn to avoid ad-based content when fact-based data is needed, and when the economy improves, writers will no longer tolerate the scams that Demand Media perpetrates.
As for deleting your content on eHow, I’ve heard they just changed their Terms of Service (go figure) to hold writer-owned content for six more months, then you are required to request deletion in writing. You know they’re going to duplicate the highest earners (as they’ve been doing) and not pay much, if anything, for writer-owned content going forward. I used to suggest that writers leave their content on eHow, but there is no point in doing that now. Tell eHow to delete it now and move on.
Going forward, anyone who voluntarily subjects themselves to more abuse by Demand Media has only themselves to blame. It makes me sad for friends with hundreds of eHow articles who are overwhelmed with the prospect of moving them, but I’m sorry, my friends; the time has come. This is officially the end of whatever eHow was pretending to be.
Cheryl / Kim
I agree “content mills” can lead to lower quality if not properly managed. While frustrated with eHow / Demand Media, I do feel they needed to do something about enforcing a minimum standard level for new writers.
To Kim’s point, I write part-time (1-2 hours each morning over coffee). Writing for Info Barrel provides me a channel to share my business experience.
I donate my earnings to local non-profits.
I am not looking at writing as a career, but find it an opportunity to knowledge share. If, in the end, it generates a trickle of cash to support a local cause, what’s wrong with that?
Failing to have a degree in Literature should not dictate one’s value as a writer. Claiming “author” as one’s career choice should not imply you are more worthy of being heard.
To share nothing… is ignorance!
Regards,
Jim
Well said, Jim. Thank you for your insightful comments.
Jim,
It wasn’t about having a degree in literature…it was that often writers devalue their craft. And then the workplace takes it for granted.
What I explained was, while I do write on my job and have had published articles, I didn’t HAVE time to send off queries, writing samples, etc. And then conduct interviews if needed. I work 40+ hours and wanted something I could do at my own pace. But I decided I’d rather get write fiction. If I get ONE fiction story published and get 5-8 cents/word (or more!), even at the low end, I would make TWICE as much as I would earn in a YEAR for my 20+ articles on eHow at the current rate I’m making!
Rhea, what is your quality level on TB? I’m just wondering if there is anyone at a level 5?
et tu, USA Today:
Demand Media to provide travel articles and videos for USA Today website
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-demand8-2010apr08,0,7380225.story
“For now, the articles are limited to USA Today’s website. But Demand has deals with other publishers for articles that appear in print, including a regular travel feature for the Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Demand’s ambitions don’t end with newspapers.
“As Google tries to organize the world’s information, we’re going to try to create the world’s content,” said Joanne Bradford, Demand’s chief revenue officer.”
Veronica–
My rating is a 4. I have heard rumors about people with a rating of 5, but never met any. Yet I never see any open orders for level 5 assignments anyway, so I’m tempted to think the level 5 rating is more like a merit badge. Shiny, but useless 🙂 If you want to make more than the 1.4 cents per word, just set your direct order price higher.
I wish I had good advice about getting more direct orders, but it seems to be kind of random for me.
The merger from eHow’s WCP to the DemandStudios writing platform has some benefits, not least of which is better quality content, an end to spam and access to a publishing tool that actually works.
Articles that remain in the WCP continue to earn as they did before, and eHow writers have the opportunity to continue to build residual income with eHow articles, simply by transitioning over to the DS tools.
The one negative aspect is that DS now retains ownership of articles, but again, this may help overall site page rank because you won’t have the problem of people deleting articles and re-titling articles, both of which mess with Google’s rankings of a site.
I’m all about diversifying my online income sources, but I’m not going to throw away one of the best residual income sites just because they made a few changes in the system.
@Maria, Thank you for sharing your views.
I understand that you believe in eHow; you started writing with them in the group that seems to have consistently made more money than did members who joined later. And please correct me that if I am mistaken, but I do not believe you were subjected to the same mysterious tecnical “glitches” that kept eHow’s less favored writers from publishing for several months while eHow claimed they were trying to fix the “bugs,” when they were, in fact, doing no such thing.
If by “Articles that remain in the WCP continue to earn as they did before,” you mean during the past year or more, then someone with nearly 1,500 well-written gardening articles can continue to earn a steady $200 a month. With all due respect, Maria, how is that a good thing?
You also said, “The one negative aspect is that DS now retains ownership of articles, but again, this may help overall site page rank because you won’t have the problem of people deleting articles and re-titling articles, both of which mess with Google’s rankings of a site.” Consider this: Demand Media is THE expert in SEO, yet they consistently deleted eHow member articles and simply redirected the links or replaced them with their own, similar versions, with no apparent ill effects on their rankings. I agree that something needed to be done about the lack of quality on eHow, but there are more effective and transparent ways to address this than eHow has done. And there are SEVERAL negative aspects to writing for DS, not just one.
As for your comment that “I’m not going to throw away one of the best residual income sites just because they made a few changes in the system,” I think that’s a bit myopic. Writers are turning their backs in droves on a company that has repeatedly conned, exploited and lied to them because these writers are smarter as a group than Demand Media pegged them for. I don’t know anyone who has left because of a “few changes,” but I know dozens of people who left because of unethical business practices.
But let’s let time be the judge. By this time next year, Demand Studios will be paying less and demanding more from writers. They’re setting writers up for the same bait-and-switch scheme that worked so well for them on eHow. Except this time they won’t have to steal content to do it, because they will already own it.
And let’s talk about InfoBarrel this time next year, too. I have spoken with three people to date who have no vested interest in InfoBarrel aside from their articles there, who say their earnings per article are now outpacing their former eHow earnings. And they can make the same $15 dollars per article on InfoBarrel that they would earn for the same content on Demand Studios, except they can earn that $15 month after month for years, AND retain the ownership rights to that article.
Even if writers were to opt for the residual payments on Demand Studios, InfoBarrel’s 75% – 90% share on its smaller, but rapidly growing site, with management that treats its members with respect and honesty, beats a proven liar with a “secret algorithm” no matter how you slice it. The same goes for sites like HubPages and Examiner, and in spite of also having a “secret algorithm,” Suite 101, with a good track record of treating writers fairly.
Maria, I believe that you are sincere in your defense of Demand Media. What you may not realize is that eHow has treated you and its other spokespeople differently than they have most of their other writers, especially those who joined in the past year, so you may not have a full understanding of the scam that was perpetrated on literally thousands of members, and that seriously harmed many of them and their families. This is not a political issue. This was a serious breach of trust that deserves to be addressed as such, and not dismissed as a case of people who simply couldn’t handle change. If you’re going to continue to speak on behalf of Demand Media, I hope you will consider the bigger picture.
If you’d like, I can introduce you to people who thought they would be earning $3000 a month from their hard-work investment on eHow by now, and are instead losing their homes, to give you a better perspective of what has truly happened here.
Even though Ehow is where I earn most of my residual income from writing, I don’t think I am going to continue with Demand Studios until they get all of the bugs worked out.
I am taking a “write for myself” approach. Why share the revenue when you could have it all right? Basically I will only be writing for revenue sharing sites that allow affiliate links, or dofollow links to support my other online endeavors.
We’ll see how that works I guess.
Good point, @George. Still, you have to get a lot of traffic to earn the same at 100% on your own site that you can earn from a high traffic site that pays 75% – 90% of revenue share.
Interesting blog post you’ve got on earning money with mock trials! I think I will check that out.
“I am taking a “write for myself” approach. Why share the revenue when you could have it all right?”
George,
…There is a reason why these sites are so successful…among some of the highest ranked in the world….they essentially come with pre-packaged search engine authority by having such an enormous database of articles and writers….
The latest ehow scandal is that one ehow user has outed himself as a former article moderator, ie sweeper. desolator144 made a post on the DS forums a couple days ago showing a screen shot of his ehow account page where he had article moderation privileges. (the thread is now deleted)
the screenshot is here: http://desolator144.com/files/mod.gif
there’s now a big stink on the ehow forum, and julie herself weighed in. julie admitted that they hired him as a secret article moderator, but later fired him after he violated their contract. no specifics. it’s amazing that even after the wcp gets shut down, shit is still hitting the proverbial fan.
You’ve got some pretty accurate and rational information in these threads. Thanks!
Suite101 pays passive revenue residuals forever. A point in their favor. They will never disclose facts about compensation. Point against. I have between 100- and 200 pieces up there and I make about $100 a month, every month, by doing nothing. They just inked a deal with Google to feed the Google NEWS engine. May be a good thing for qualified writers, may not.
Examiner shut off residuals for writers who are not “active.” They did that long ago and it is a totally unethical decision, from my personal point-of-view. Writers material makes money for Examiner forever. Writers only get paid if they keep adding bulk. Of all the mills there are, imho, Examainer is the very worst for writers.
–mkp
Maryan, your point about Examiner is well taken. There are several aspects to writing there that I like, but I quit writing there several months ago and haven’t been back. If I was still earning on my content, I may well have picked up writing there again. And you are correct; they do continue earning on content they don’t pay for. We all need to stick with the ethical sites and show those who are greedy and unfair that shady tactics don’t profit them.
I was accepted to DS and decided to not go. You are right, it will be more of the same. At least one person has already been dropped even though she was pre-approved with a 99% accepted rating and writes for Suite 101. I feel bad for her, but she is probably just the first of many.
I would suggest Squidoo to people. So far I have found them extremely honorable. I once had a glitch with my pay. I told tech about it and within 5 days, the money I was owed was in PayPal. They didn’t string me along or anything. They got to it quickly and got it resolved. The higher ups, keep up with what is going on. Even Seth Godin (owner) has popped in at the forum on a rare occasion. The go between (Kimberly) has a daily post on the forum and pops in when she is needed. I don’t feel the distance between management and writer there that I felt at eHow. They may not always agree with the writers, but they do listen.
Lynn
Good insights, Lynn, thank you for weighing in on this. Seems to me if DS dropped someone who writes for Suite101, there is another game being played. And it tells you DS doesn’t care about quality, because Suite sets the bar high for a content site. Your comment that she is “…probably just the first of many.” Is likely to prove spot on in short order.
Would like to hear more about your Squidoo experience and how the income ranks in your eyes. Hope to read about it on your “Diary of a WAHM” blog soon!
I decided to do a quick search on google using “ehow closing” and found your website. Thanks for a well-written post about the recent eHow fiasco. I hadn’t been paying much attention to my eHow account since I experienced “the sweeps” last fall. I noticed recently my earnings were jumping up so I decided to put more articles on eHow’s site. And then I ran into the publishing bugs…Then they announced the “merge” with DS. Then I started reading the eHow forums for the very first time. Wow… the UK thing? Pretty nasty move to screw your members/writers who brought in all the content which is making you the big bucks.
A quick question for you. Is infobarrell a place where we can rip down our eHow articles and place them?
~Shaun
Shaun:
Yes, you can.
InfoBarrel offers multi-formats (the “How To” format being one).
One of their TOS is that articles not be duplicates of already existing online articles, so after posting on InfoBarrel, you will need to remove your prior version from eHow.
Hope the info is helpful… -Jim
Hi, I know a lot of us at ehow have been frustrated about the loss of the writers compensation program so I wanted to share a website that was impressive and also offers a similar writers compensation program. Â
Â
It’s called listmyfive.com you basically create any “top five” list that you can think of and get ad revenue share for the lists you create. They to pay with pay-pal and set-up and publishing is simple. This is the best thing I found sense the dismantle of ehow’s WCP.
Â
with listmyfive I’ve seen about the same revenue potential as ehow, so I thought I would share that site with fellow frustrated ehow writers… hope this helps.
-JT
Any private web investigators out there? Here are some provable facts. As someone else once commented on another site, Ehow has phantom writers –
fake names associated with fake profiles that seemed to accumulate tons of
articles. I checked out Diana Bocco myself (mentioned elsewhere). There was a picture that looked like a fashion model, a well-worded bio, and several hundred articles. But the person had signed up on a certain date and apparently never logged in again – she had nearly no friends, made no comments, got no comments, and ‘had not been seen since; date was the same as the sign up date.
Just for fun, I followed up on some of Diana’s very few “friends” , maybe 2-3, ridiculous for someone with so many articles – and they also had loads of articles, and signed up and were last seen on the same date. Most had zero friends, zero comments, etc. Some of them had hundreds of articles but their sign up date was just a month old. Even writing non-stop, how could they produce that many?
Today I was on Media Bistro looking for some work, and I saw an ad for DS/EHow and recognized the picture used for Diana – right here: demandstudios.com/health-writing-jobs.html?utm_source=LSmbjobs&utm_medium=jobpost&utm_campaign=livestrongLP –AND this ad for EHow shows the girl in the picture’s name is now “Claire Taylor” – with this bio: Claire Taylor is a health, wellness and travel writer with credits in publications such as “Woman’s Day,” “Marie Claire,” “Adirondack Life” and “Self.” Taylor is also a seasoned independent traveler, as well as a certified personal trainer and nutrition consultant. So I searched on the original name and found Diana Bocco is now only associated with about 50 articles instead of 300 or more. And when I clicked on the titles, they went to the account of a Sarah Dray at the following link – Look very carefully and read the end of the link here: ehow.com/members/ds_dibocc.html
And Ms. Dray’s picture is different, but her bio has exactly the same wording as quoted above: “…in health, wellness and travel topics and has credits in various publications, including “Woman’s Day,” “Marie Claire,” “Adirondack Life” and “Self.” She is also a seasoned independent traveler and a certified personal trainer and nutrition consultant.” Is this woman p/o a witness relocation plan or is EHow playing games and making up people/profiles to go with all the salvaged articles they deleted to plow that money back into the company? I also have another supposition – this was likely all in place with the “old EHow” long before DS took it over. It would be good to find out if Ehow lied to DS about their initial balance sheet to get themselves bought out – and once purchased, DS had to find a way to keep the money coming in the same way it used to under the “old owners”. Somebody should audit their books – AFTER checking out all their other “phantom contributors” and
loggin in all their names so at some point they have to prove these are real people!