Where Has the Work Gone? That is a Good Question.

Lately much of what I have written about here is referencing the supposed downfall of the "Get Paid To Write" industry. While I have only based my opinion on the few sites that I used, I still feel my opinion to be solid. I have seen (and heard) a couple varying opinions about the industry of late and in this post I intend to address all of them as well as to reiterate my opinion on the matter.

First, let me take you back to the beginning. Back to a few weeks ago when I first started to notice the lack of work where there used to be an abundance. Like I said above, I based my opinion on the sites that I used and not on the entire lot of them. A small sample size some would say. However small, the 6 sites that I would write for accounted for a decent amount of money. Not that I was getting rich, but I was able to remain in my current station and was not forced to seek a part time or full time job out in the Real World. So the money was at least sufficient.

While I am not going to just start listing off the sites that I would work for, I will say that I have mentioned them many times before in various posts both here and in the Google Plus communities. In addition, I have worked for 4 out of the 6 sites for over two years. So I have a nice amount of time to base my so-called theories on as well. And here they are:

I believe that the "Get Paid To Write" industry is in the midst of a change. I am not yet sure to what degree or to what extent, but something is surely amiss. Again, places where I would easily have enough work to keep me busy at least for 4 hours daily are now devoid of any work at all. Are they all disappearing? No, they still remain and work does pop up every now and again. But nowhere near where it was before.

Also, there are a couple sites that I would always have an easy time getting in touch with either live support or  email based support. Now... nothing. I cannot even get a reply when writing to the Big Cheese. So what does this mean? I'm not sure yet. Nor am I some industry guru either. But, I have noticed this altered way of doing business and I am worried. Worried because I liked working for these sites and worried because I liked the money.

The reason I liked working for the sites that I did was because they were responsive to my requests/questions, and they paid ON TIME and ACCURATELY! To me this is very important.

So what is this change? Could they be merging? Going out of business? Losing contracts? I really cannot say for sure. But the crappy part about all of this is that I have been forced to seek work in places that I stayed away from for a reason. For example.. I have done some work for Article Teller and Hire Writers in the past, so I hit them up again. While they had some work to be done it was not all that desirable. Plus their payments were more on the low end from what I was used to. Either way.. it was work so I did a couple.

Here is the problem. Out of the 4 article that I did for both sites all of them were rejected! Now this is not my ego talking when I say that I know the work was not "below standard" or below what they either expected or what they can sell to their clients. I have had this thought before about these sites (and others) but I really think when they reject my work they are just looking to get the writing for free. They reject it, still sell it to their client so they get paid. But by rejecting it on my end they do not have to pay me, the writer.

I suppose that I could scour the net looking for my written work, but that takes time. Time that I do not have because I need to work and make money. In  a way, they have me by the short hairs. There are not to many options in this scenario. None else that I can see anyway. The best one that I can see? To no longer write for either of these sites again.

Some of the other opinions that I have heard around the water cooler of late? That maybe the sites are just in a down period. While this is entirely possible and would make sense, this would also mean that at some point they would rise back up. Yet I have not seen such a thing happen yet. Then again these things take time and they do not happen on my time table. So patience is needed.

Another.. maybe I am just not writing for the right places? Well.. this could very well be. My problem here is that I have, for most of the sites that I use, been working with them for on average two years. IN that time you would think that I would have found both the good sites and the bad ones. I would have also, in that time, gravitated towards the good ones. Now this I have done, certainly. And sure.. there are some bad sites in my list. But most of them are good ones. I do not make a habit of saving web addresses of places that I do not like to visit. People rarely do.

In my opinion there are generally two types of writing in this business. There is the SEO style and the Creative style. I think for the most part good writers prefer the Creative style. SEO is ok but it is too keyword heavy and lacks a certain.. story to the writing. Yet it is the SEO that people in the content market generally want to pay for because in the long run it is what drives search results to their sites and therefore to their wallet.

Even though this is true I have not found much by way of the SEO market either. IT seems that the work has dried up in both arenas. Why, I just do not know. But I would like to find out. I would like to be able to get back to getting paid for my writing as well as being able to tell myself that I am "working". That is a rather satisfying feeling is it not? And while not too many of us have gotten rich in this line of work it is the potential that I think keeps many of us in it. The potential of our work getting out there or our name becoming worth something and therefore driving more lucrative work our way. I keep searching for this and other answers and if I should find any, you can count on me writing about them here.