KLF Writing Services

Writers are a pretty close knit group. As a member of that group, I sometimes have to share information on sites that are not what they seem to be. In the past, I've written about Mahalo and what they did to their writers. It wasn't a pleasant task, but it needed to be done. After all, Mahalo was pretty lucrative for some writers (including myself) for a decent period of time.

Every now and then writers in search of work will come across relatively new writing sites that look like a promising venture. The problem is that sometimes these sites and their owners get greedy or completely mismanage the site and the fall of them is heard throughout the online writing community. That's because they don't fall soon enough to prevent writers from being taken advantage of. Sadly, WritingbyCyndi.com is a site that currently takes advantage of select writers because of poor management practices and the presence of greed.

When I first started working for this site, the payments came as promised. Then, within a couple of weeks, payments were spotty or nonexistent. The reasons declared were that Paypal lost invoices, the site hadn't been paid yet or, when all else failed, the writing was rejected. Email correspondence from the owner was emotional and filled with name calling and confusion. Paypal reminders were met with hostility and confusion over which project the invoice concerned, though every invoice contained the details of the individual articles.

At this point, I was prepared to quit, but since invoices existed (and months later still do) that were not paid, I was afraid that I would never receive payment. I was chastised for questioning my "employer's" integrity. I was told to stop harassing her, yet my only initiation of correspondence was through Paypal reminders and every single invoice reminder I sent was met with childish multitudes of emails and threats of litigation with closing remarks in the form of questions on how I would like to proceed.

How I would like to proceed is how every writer would like to proceed. I'd like to get paid for work that was already published. Period.

This is just another reminder of why writers need to do research on sites before working for them. Happy writing to you all!

When I talk about scam writing sites, I use the term "scam" loosely. It means that yes, your work might get published. You might even get paid. But, somewhere along the line the site will lose integrity and you as the writer will feel the effect of it. Below are some red flags that a site may not be all that you expect it to be.

No TOS or Contract: Most freelance writing sites have a Terms of Service (TOS) that you agree to or a contract. These are the places where your rights are spelled out as far as copyright retainment, reprint rights and so forth are listed. If you find a site that doesn't have one of these, that's a good indication that it isn't a professional site. For instance, one poorly run site that offered no TOS or even a loosely formatted contract was WritingbyCyndi.com. On the upside, that means that every article sold to the site can now be sold for reprints. The downside is that writers and clients alike can expect that lack of professionalism to cause problems down the road. (Hint: Google isn't all that fond of complete reprints.)

Lack of Writer Reviews: When you look into working for a new site, be sure to Google it and learn about the experiences of other writers. A lack of reviews can mean that the site is too new to have any reviews yet, so tread carefully. You don't want your finances wrapped up in a fly-by-night sort of site.

Avoidance of Direct Answers: Lots of sites are too busy to answer every email. But, if you have a question about payment or the details of the writing and your email is ignored or responded to without actually answering the question, there are one of two things happening. Either the owner is avoiding the question or they don't even know the answer. I'm not really sure which is worse.

Payment Under Different Names: Again, WritingbyCyndi.com comes to mind. On that particular site, the payment comes from the owner's boyfriend rather than the owner or the site name. There are two things to consider here. What happens if the other person decides to take the money and run? You have no contract with them. Why doesn't the owner have their own account or the site itself have one for that matter?

Late Payment: There are some sites I write for that don't always pay on the exact day they are due. Sometimes this is because of a holiday or even a backlog. If payment comes within a day or two of when it's expected, this isn't always a big deal. After all, we've all had deadlines that were stretched because of a power outage or other technical difficulty. The problem is when it becomes a habit for the site to pay late or emails regarding payment are met with hostility. Unprofessional sites like this always go under. It's simply a matter of time.

Call Themselves Your "Employer": When a writing site starts taking out taxes and paying unemployment insurace, they are free to call themselves your employer. Until then, you are a freelance writer contracted to do specific tasks.

In short, it's always a good idea to get some background on online writing sites before you put too much effort into them. Unless you enjoy writing for free, do your homework to avoid online writing sites that are really just scams. Below is a list of places that is updated as I receive information about sites that offer insight into online writing site scams. Remember that a site that is listed even once as a scam has burnt at least one writer. Don't let your own name be the next one to get burnt.

Accentuate Writers Forum
Writers Beware