Some novice freelancers see writing for Demand Studios, Examiner.com, Helium and other content aggregators as a legitimate way into the business. They’re willing to put up with working conditions that make more experienced writers cringe: fees of $10 to $20 or less per article that necessitate cranking out dozens, even hundreds, of pieces a month to make a decent living.

The site’s defenders counter that most contributors write only part-time, and don’t depend on it for their livelihood. They also argue it’s a great way to get a foot in the door and get writing work without going through the hassles and rejections of querying higher paying publications.

Detractors have questioned whether anybody can research and write a “story” in the amount of time it would take to produce enough copy to make much money. They also worry that writers for these sites are merely rewriting other people’s work. This snippet from an honest-to-goodness ad that appeared recently in Craigslist‘s Portland listings appears to prove their point (emphasis is mine):

Here’s the job:

1 – I send you a link to an article.
2 – You read the article.
3 – Then you rewrite/summarize the article, adding a few sentences that are specific to our business. In general, I will expect to get your writing back within 24 hours of my sending the article. If it doesn’t happen every time, that’s fine. You get to go on vacation once in a while! But the general expectation is speed.
4 – I edit the article and send you the finished version.
5 – You look at it, think about what I’ve changed, and what you could do differently next time to get it more like I want it.
6 – Repeat
7 – Once a month, I mail you a check. You get $3 for one sort of blog post (3-4 formulaic paragraphs) and $5 for another type (longer, more thoughtful, or a press release). It’s $3 unless I say otherwise.

I’ve called it the race to the bottom, and maintain there are better ways to break into the freelance business, and better business models for building a successful freelance writing career.

But why take my word for it? Here are examples of a few other blogs where this debate is taking place. Visit, read and come back here to comment.

• 10 reasons why old school freelance writers (including me) need to lighten up and stop whining - One of several posts Freelance Writing Jobs’ Deb Ng has written on the topic since announcing a partnership between her popular freelance blog and Demand Studios.
• Writer mills making big $: Demand Studios – Freelance business writer Erik Sherman represents an opposing viewpoint: caution, some language in this post is NSFW.
• Yolander, won’t you please shut up about the content mills? – Freelancewriterville blogger Yolander Prinzel’s account of writing for content aggregators, why she doesn’t anymore and why she doesn’t think anyone else should either.
• Was I wrong about Helium? – Tim Beyers, aka The Social Writer, explains how he made more selling reprints of a story he originally published on Helium than what he earned on the site.
• Writer mills: you can do better – Long-time freeleancer Jesaka Long riffs on posts from Sherman and others. Her conclusion: “…writers should stand for what they are worth every day. No exception.”
• Are content aggregators a freelancer’s friend or foe? A novice freelancer tries to figure it out for herself.
• I did it again – freelance writing and the great rate debate – Carson Brackney’s faced off with Deb Ng over this issue before, and apparently reading my earlier post caused him to weigh in again. BTW, thanks to Carson for the inspiration for the title of this blog post.

Do you write for content aggregators sites? Has it helped your career? How much money do you make at it? Do you include those clips in your portfolio when going for higher-paying work?

But for freelancers, there’s a huge debate happening over the merits of writing for a content aggregator to advance your career, a debate that last week spilled onto the pages of this blog. First long-time freelancer Tim Beyers examined the reasons why a writer shouldn’t bother with content aggregators. Then Helium’s new writer outreach manager Barbara Whitlock countered with her own detailed explanation of  why freelancers would want to write for a content aggregator, Helium in particular.

I say if you’re a writer looking for experience, there’s a better way.

Instead of writing for an aggregator, find out what hyperlocal news sites have popped up in your area, introduce yourself and ask if there’s anything you can do to help.

In case you’re not familiar with them, hyperlocal news sites are blogs that focus on what’s happening in a specific area, be it a neighborhood, town or city. You might also know them as community news blogs or citizen journalist sites. Some examples: NewzJunky in Watertown, New York; Hop Town in Hopkinsville, Massachusetts, and NeighborsGo.com in Dallas.

If you work for a hyperlocal news organization you’ll probably start out making about as much as you would at a content aggregator – which is to say not much. But if you really are just starting out, you could use the opportunity to go out and do some man-on-the-street reporting,  and pick up other valuable experience.

If you don’t think there are hyperlocal or citizen journalists operating in your city you’re wrong, you just haven’t looked hard enough. Here in Portland, there are at least four, including Neighborhood Notes and OurPDX, more if you count sites that focus on niches like tech, books or cycling.

If there really aren’t hyperlocal sites where you live, start one. By teaching yourself everything you need to know to run a hyperlocal or community news site, you’re teaching yourself everything you need to know in 2009 and going into the future to get hired as a staff writer or make it as a freelancer, things like using a content management system (a fancy term for blogging or blog-like software), HTML, linking, how to write for a blog, how to write straight news, how to take pictures, video and audio, etc.

When it comes down to it, as long as you’re going to the time and trouble of learning the craft, why give the fruits of your labors to another business when you could maximize the benefit and profit for the enterprise that matters most – you.

His post prompted Barbara Whitlock, Helium’s new member outreach manager, to reply. Instead of burying what Whitlock had to say in the comments under Beyers’ post (where you can still find them), I thought I’d keep the debate going by posting them here.

Freelancers considering user-generated content sites like Helium often begin with a healthy skepticism. Those who have earned well previously, as full-time freelancers or journalists, sometimes come with some added baggage: frustration at watching their livelihood shrink and anxiety about what the future will hold for their craft.

Some approach new opportunities on the Internet like Luddites of old, and want to bash against everything they see. Others are more open to adapt to new technologies, and try to hone their craft to new approaches. Economic necessity and a love of writing drive most to take a peek or try out sites like Helium. Many are thriving in this new world of freelance writing.

What’s to be gained and what is at risk in joining sites like Helium.com?

Gains:

• Unlimited opportunities to write on topics which interest you.
• Added revenue streams for writing income.
• Wider exposure and name recognition on the web. Helium has a Google page rank of 7, which means you can use Helium to get your name out there and link to your blog or other writing venues.
• Recognition for your professional credentials, which lifts you above the anonymity of the web.
• Opportunities to connect to gig opportunities for 100s of magazine, website and – increasingly – newspaper publishers.
• Contests, journalism prizes and other seasonal opportunities.
• A supportive writing community, with structures and a unique online culture that make Helium’s expansive writing community personal too.

Risks:

• Non-exclusive articles remain on Helium. You are free to republish on other non-exclusive sites, but you cannot delete or try to use those as exclusive for another publisher.
• Exclusive articles in Marketplace are often ghost-written, and do not usually provide you with clips, just money.
• Addiction – most Helium members have a lot of fun writing with abandon, editing and supporting other writers.

Tim Beyers made some thoughtful comments, through the lens of the traditional publishing world. He got one major point wrong: Helium has paid out over $1 million to writers thus far. Here’s some added information to address his other points:

1. Tim suggested Helium lacks editor support. In fact, Helium has a fleet of editors who help writers. These editors review every newly posted article (this is relatively new). We also have subject matter experts overseeing content areas who have a high sense of ownership over the content there. Finally, we have an open email system where any writer can provide editorial suggestions to writers. Someone sent me one yesterday letting me know that I had a typo and needed to improve the look of my links. Those looking for one-to-one editorial help can write to mentor@helium.com. Many layers of editorial support are available. Some members who dip in but do not participate more expansively at Helium may not know of all these layers of editorial support.

2. Tim mentions a lack of incentive to improve Helium articles once published. However, incentive to improve is built into the competitive model. Leapfrog revisions are not limited, and what encourages writers to improve varies. Many want to improve their rank placement in title groups, and increase writing stars for higher upfront earnings per article. Many learn more tricks of the trade for web writing, and turn back to improve their leads, add more SEO value to their article, add metacontent subheaders, etc. Others just enjoy improving their work.

3. Tim adds concern about writer clips. All the non-exclusive articles writers publish on Helium become part of their visible portfolio, and can be used as clips. If you are selected by a newspaper partner for print publication, these are regular print clips (full byline credit). Our newspapers often provide pdf version in addition to news clips you can cut out yourself from the Sunday editions. With exclusive Marketplace content, it is not guaranteed that you’ll be able to use clips, but sometimes you can find them through search queries.

From a traditional freelance perspective skepticism about writer’s sites like Helium makes sense. But in a world of shrinking traditional freelance gigs, most writers have found they need to grab all the opportunities they can, and through that aggregate they can keep up with their income needs.

Helium isn’t a substitute for a full-time job, but it can be combined with other freelance gigs to provide additional revenue. Plus, the freedom to also write what you want is appealing for many. Often writers want to demonstrate their expertise in an area, and writing a body of articles helps give weight to that.

Lots of options, but realize Helium has additive value for writers who freelance full-time. It’s one revenue stream that can help — and it’s fun.

I’d welcome further discussion on this if anyone is interested: bwhitlock@helium.com.

Writers deal with rejection all the time. But when a magazine editor says no to a query or kills a story, how many of us brush it off as easily as my saleswoman friend?

Rejection has been the topic du jour since Dan Baum wrote about his 2007 firing from The New Yorker in 140 character installments on Twitter a few days ago and then reassembled it as a whole piece on his website.

Not only was Baum fired by New Yorker editor David Remnick, he had five stories killed in the three-plus years he was a staff writer. Given the standing of The New Yorker in the American publishing industry, that’s rejection on an epic scale.

After reading Baum’s explanations of why he was fired and why the stories were killed, the whole episode seems less an edict on Baum’s abilities and more a confluence of unfortunate events and personality mismatch with a little bad decision making thrown in for good measure.

For example, in 2004, Baum wrote a story about how Florida was preparing for the presidential election that was killed over concerns about reporter bias after he mentioned to an editor he’d spent an afternoon distributing Kerry literature. A 2004 story about geneticists was killed after editors decided it was too similar to one by Malcolm Gladwell that had appeared in the magazine eight years earlier. A story on U.S. Special Forces troops training the Philippine army to fight terrorists never ran, according to Baum, because editors let it sit for months then killed it after a competitor ran a piece on a similar topic.

Baum wants it to be known that his explanations, which are posted on his website along with the complete manuscripts of all the killed stories, are only his own, how the killing of these stories looked to him at the time. He allows that he could be all wrong, that the stories were killed because they simply were no good.

What Baum’s explanations show me is that sometimes, it’s not you, it’s them. As a writer you can hit all the marks – write the perfect query or turn in exactly what you were assigned, – and still be rejected because circumstances have changed, the editors changed their minds, or when all is said and done, they’re just not that into you. Another great example of this is William Georgiades’ 2004 Mediabistro piece on his dealing with a Conde Nast editor over an ill-fated travel piece.

The moral of the story: Even though writing is a creative process, it’s still a business. The sooner freelancers come to terms with that, the easier it is to put rejection in its place, and like my saleswoman friend, move onto the next prospect.

According to Baum, he decided to come clean about his New Yorker experience after being asked about it at readings for Nine Lives, his book about post-Katrina New Orleans that debuted in February. You can read more about Baum, the book and his New Yorker days in a recent interview with the Colorado Springs Independent.

You can read more of what people are saying about how Baum used Twitter to tell his New Yorker saga in Gawker’s take on the story.

Not all rejections are bad. In fact, some are worth celebrating, according to Tim Beyers, a Denver freelance writer for Motley Fool and host of the weekly #editorchat session on Twitter, in a post called A word about rejection: dude. Beyers writes: “One I received last month from a national publication included this note from the editor: ‘You’re a good writer, and I wish you all the best.’ I think she means it. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself these days.”

To deconstruct other reasons magazines turn down writers’ queries, read Susan Johnston’s blog post on The Urban Muse, called 15 reasons your idea got rejected.

Elance: Cash is King – The freelance marketplace’s monthly index shows demand is up for article writing (+2) and way up for online writing (+12).

Amazon introduces the Kindle DX – The newest version of the bookseller’s electronic reading tablet out this summer will have a 9.7″ making it well-suited, according to Amazon, for magazines, newspapers and textbooks.

Tweetsurfing: what it is and why all writers should do it - Motley Fool writer Tim Beyers explains the finer points of trolling Twitter for interesting tidbits that could turn into story ideas.

Twitter is down: 15 alternative things to do – The techies at Twitter took down the service for scheduled maintenance on Friday afternoon, leaving a lot of people with a lot of extra time on their hands, including the writers and readers at TechCrunch, who came up with a hilarious list of other things to do (many of which centered around bitching about Twitter being down).

Retraining wire and feature editors to be web curabors – Call it the copy editor’s full employment act. If editors can teach themselves SEO and link out to related material, Publishing 2.0 argues, they’ll never be out of a job.

Finding the fun in querying – Freelance writer and fellow WordCount Blogathoner Heather Boerner is doing a 30-day series on persistence, which includes this installment on getting over query angst.

When freelancers flake we all suffer – Almost too painful to read, this post from writer and editor KT Hinderer on freelance foul ups is a good reminder that if you ever get in a jam on a story, don’t think your editor won’t notice. Better to fess up and suffer the consequences than to “burn bridges before you can even finish building them.”

• Pitched a story about Twitter.
• Found sources for the story on Twitter.
• Had sources use Twitter to publicize the story once it went live.
• Watched my Twitter followers have a real-time debate over pros and cons of issues raised in story.
• Had a Twitter conversation with one of those followers over what was being debated that led to an idea for follow up piece.

When I mentioned this chain of events on a writers’ board, one friend wrote:

I joined recently and don’t get it. I thought I’d be able to drop in and out of streams of conversations on certain topics, but I don’t even know how to get anything meaningful out of anything. I click on “Everyone” and just have a static list of who said what in the last few min. I click refresh and get a bit more. I really thought I’d be able to see more real-time action.

I get similar questions from writers who’re  just starting to use Twitter – and it wasn’t that long ago that I was in the same boat.

So for what it’s worth, I’ve taken everything I’ve learned since my first tweet and compiled this, a writers’ guide to getting the most out of Twitter.

Have a plan. Think about why you want to use Twitter. Is it to find sources? Troll for story ideas? Promote yourself as an expert on a specific topic? Build a platform for your book or blog? Look for work? Deciding what you want out of it will drive how you use it.

Follow people. Once you’ve figured out why you’re using it, follow other Twitter users who fall into one or more of your designated Twitter areas of interest. If you write about gardening, for example, you’ll want to follow gardening experts. Do a Twitter Search to find them. Use the Search link at the bottom of the Twitter home page and search for “gardening” or use the hashtag #gardening. If you spot someone who’s tweeted something interesting, click on their bio, read more about them, and if you like what you see, follow them. You can also use directories like WeFollow.com to find people whose interests you share or who you think would make good sources.

Introduce yourself. If someone you follow follows you back, or someone you don’t know follows you, introduce yourself. Send them a DM – Twitter speak for a private message – explaining who you are, where you’re located, what you write about, and throw in a link to your Website or blog. That’s a lot to fit into 140 characters, use a service like Tiny URL to keep it short. Tailor your DMs to new followers to their interests. I cover HR, tech and social media and when someone new follows me, I rewrite my initial DM depending on common interests or geography.

Tweet. That is to say, don’t just lurk, enter the frey. Most writers are born sharers so this shouldn’t be hard, but the 140-character format and constant stream of tweets it could take some getting used to. What to say? That’s the easy part: talk about what you’re working on (without giving too much away), crowdsource for stories you’re doing, vent about workplace frustrations or comment on someone else’s tweet. It’s also perfectly acceptable to promote something you’re written or your latest blog post, just be careful not to overdo it.

Use Twitter tools. Widgets and apps like TweetDeck and TweetGrid can keep track of followers or tweets by grouping them into categories and replying to comments after they’ve scrolled off the screen. Mashable, the social media Website, has as list of 140+ Twitter tools with links to even more.

Take it at your own pace. Freelance writer Donna Hull suggests:

Don’t feel like you need to read every twitter, even TweetDeck can’t help you keep up with all of it. Be sure to check your DM’s and @replies as they are the most important. Otherwise, think of it as communicating in real time. Jump in the info stream, get as much out of it as you can. When it’s time to jump out, forgot about it until the next Twitter session.

For a lot of people, Twitter is a numbers game that’s all about how many followers they can get – similar to the open networkers on LinkedIn or friend fiends on Facebook who collect connections like baseball cards. But a worthwhile social network is based on quality, not quantity. You want to know the people you’re adding are there for a reason. If that means you only add a couple new Twitter followers a week, so be it. On the other hand, the more people you follow, the more conversations will be going on in your tweet stream and the more you’ll have to read, learn from and reach out to when the occasion comes.

Restrict your intake. It’s easy to get caught up in the flow, literally. But if you’re billing by the hour or project like most freelancers, you can’t afford to spend all day on Twitter, even if it is great for finding sources and ideas. Donna Hull put herself on a “Twitter diet,” giving herself Twitter breaks like coffee breaks. Other writers check in before or after their workday.

Here are some other blog posts from tech-savvy freelancers sharing how they’re making the most of Twitter:

Getting started on Twitter – Twitter basics from Elizabeth Kricfalusi, the tech writer behind the excellent Tech for Luddites blog.

8 ways Twitter can grow your freelance business – Bizzia.com’s Jennie Cromie penned this guest blog post for TwiTips, a newish Twitter tips Website from ProBlogger.com’s Darren Rowse.

25 publishing industry people to follow – Former Writer’s Digest editor Maria Schneider’s list of Twitter must follows includes book agents, publishers and social media gurus.

Editorchat – In early February, Motley Fool writer Tim Beyers and freelancer Lydia Dishman started this gabfest for writers and editors that takes place live on Twitter every Wednesday from 8 to 9:30 p.m. EST. Use #editorchat to follow the action or read entire transcripts on the Editorchat blog.