A Buck A Word? Is That What Your Blog Is Worth?
Mike May has an interesting commentary on how to better compensate citizen journalists for their work - treat 'em like people!
- The value of citizen publisher content to advertisers or sponsors should be no less than the value of freelance writing contributions for publishers. The industry standard for freelance writing is $1 per word. Blogs, then, should be valued, on average, at $1 per word.
- The word-count contributing to this value is to include comments on the site. Blogs richer in conversation are considered valuable by all measures, and the writers who stimulate and sustain that conversation should be likewise compensated.
I think that Mike makes an interesting point, however, I think that the two things need to be separated to a certain extent. Specifically, perhaps we should consider two points that buyers might "use against" a $1 per word model (I'm only playing Devil's advocate):
Intention - The $1 per word rate, I am assuming, is for works that are intentionally prepared for a source. I'm going on my past experiences with copy writers. We had a specific need for a piece of content, we provided a high-level view of the key points we needed to make, and they delivered a finished work, with multiple rounds of edits, that satisfied our need.
A blog post surely could operate on this level of scrutiny, though it's not the norm just yet. To that end, we imagine that there will be a need connect buyers to sellers that can produce commissioned works.
Ownership - To sell it means to own it. It's not clear that in all cases, comments are owned by the owner of the site. If they were sold, I'd rather see that money go to the commentator.
I don't think Mike is saying that he should sell those comments. He's more asserting that the value of the author, and hence their works, is greater when that author is able to generate conversation and dialog.
We fully support this notion and it is a core part of the system. Ultimately, we are not in control, though, since the owners of the content are free to choose whatever pricepoint they deem appropriate. The market will determine if it gets bought or not.
What's your post worth? How much per word? Would you even charge per word?