Should I Write for Exposure? (Part 1)

As a general rule, I am not a big fan of writing for free. I wouldn't ask my doctor to work for free. I wouldn't ask the person who collects my garbage to work for free. I rather think that people who are offering "exposure" and not cash are running a scam. Perhaps a legal scam, but a scam nonetheless.

And yet you see this sort of opportunity offered in many different places. As in: "While we can't pay you, we do offer you exposure that might result in..." This has only increased as the Internet has increased.

I do understand that many of these publications have little cash with which to pay writers. Fine, if you don't have money, write it yourself. That sort of exposure for writers is not really exposure. Exposure is being published in something that someone actually reads. Obscure websites are rarely that.

Now, there are a very limited number of sites where you write because you are part of that community. Science fiction fans have built up some nice sites along those lines. Yeah. This isn't that. I understand why someone might do that and enjoy it.

I am talking about sites that are clearly commercial endeavors, but which refuse to pay for commercial work.

However, there are very limited places where I will occasionally right for free. All of these places have significant website traffic that gets folks to come to my websites. Two of them are here and here. Notice, though, that these are sites where I went, signed up, and wrote articles that point toward me.I get traffic and share in the Adsense. These are not some faceless email that promised me riches through lots of exposure. 

Some time back, I wrote a couple of articles for a website that is very large in my field. I did that for free. These articles include links to my online high schools website. These links result in noticeable and significant traffic each month. Also and importantly, I can trace those links to actual money earned through Google Adsense.

To recap, writing for free with the idea that it helps your bottom line almost immediately? Good.

Writing for free for exposure? Bad. 

Comments

[Dorothy]

Hi Tom! While I'm agreeing with you about expecting payment from quality articles, for the not Writer's Digest worthy articles and you just want to get your link out there, I highly recommend doing it. Even though your submission is basically free, you get free links back to your website, free branding yourself as an expert and free subscribers who might wander over to your website or blog and subscribe to your feed and that's only the tip of the iceberg. It also gets your name out there where just having a website or a blog isn't quite reaching the masses you want to reach. Ezine Articles is an excellent example of this. I don't publish as many "free" articles as I used to because I'm so busy doing other stuff but I need to get back to it.

[Judith Briles]

I certainly agree in writing for free but in a way will benefit you overall. I guess that is worthy business after all. Any person would actually want to get things done for free but somehow would always find something more beneficial in addition. I agree with Squidoo and hubpages. I also agree with Ezinearticles. Great places to start with.