The WMF Archives: CrowdSpring's Content-Mill Model: Writing on Spec for a Shot at Better Pay

Thursday, May 6, 2010

CrowdSpring's Content-Mill Model: Writing on Spec for a Shot at Better Pay

11:49 AM

I stumbled upon a content mill I'd never heard of before this week -- CrowdSpring, which provides a marketplace for both designers and writers. I spoke with their co-founder, Ross Kimbarovsky about their model.

CrowdSpring is different from any other mill I've heard about in one key respect: Prices are much higher. Their minimum fee for a single article is $200.

Sounds amazing for a mill, right? There is a pretty big catch, though -- you're writing on spec. Their site says the average design or writing request gets more than 100 responses. So it's long odds that you'll be the one to get that $200.

As many of you know, I am not a fan of content mills generally. But I found this model a little intriguing in that there is no bidding war, no race to the bottom price, no crummy $15-a-post prices. Some other facts I gleaned:

CrowdSpring is two years old, and its community is 60,000 strong and comes from 170 countries. Kimbarovsky says they're adding about 1,000 people a week.
They've paid out $4 million to designers and writers in their two years in business. For contrast, Demand Studios has paid out $17 million over three years. My sense: CrowdSpring is smaller, and fewer writers are getting paid more per-writer, and getting paid way more per assignment.
CrowdSpring charges the companies submitting projects a 15% fee on top of the $200 -- you do not pay them a cut. You get the full fee, and there's transparency here on how much CrowdSpring is making off you, an issue many writers have complained about to me. And that's a very reasonable fee for connecting you with a decent-paying client, in my opinion.
Companies from all over the globe post projects, so it could be a chance to connect with a big international client.
There are big-ticket jobs on here. Kimbarovksy says one Korean company posted $80,000 worth of work recently, broken up into 43 different jobs.
About 40% of the CrowdSpring community is under age 34.
CrowdSpring appears to be a good place to make connections with clients you can work for on an ongoing basis. "We're told about half our 11,000 projects led to follow-on work," says Kimbarovsky.

Kimbarovsky says CrowdSpring was formed partly in reaction to the price collapse we've all seen in some of the other mill models, where per-article prices seem to be drifting down towards $1-$5 a post. "Not a single U.S. designer we've talked to said they could get [decent-paying] work on Elance," Kimbarovsky says. CrowdSpring provides a platform that keeps prices firm -- it's just a big diceroll if you'll get paid $200 or zero.

I'm still in favor of doing your own prospecting and finding your own clients. But if you're writing for mills at $20 or less per post now and are looking to move up and find better clients, CrowdSpring might be a model that could be an interim next-step for you. If you score a few $200 articles, it would likely provide stronger clips you could use to land better-paying clients of your own.

Photo via Flickr user FYlndOut

Labels: Carol Tice, content mills, CrowdSpring, Demand Studios

17 comments:

Pam Houghton said...: Good info Carol. Glad you posted it.; May 6, 2010 1:05 PM
Ross Kimbarovsky said...: Hi Carol,

Much thanks for your article about crowdSPRING. I do hope your readers take a look.

I want to share one additional fact. To date, the average award in a writing project on crowdSPRING is $467 - considerably more than the minimum in many of the categories. Compared especially to the $1-$5 per post models, we think we've created a community where both clients and writers can derive reasonable and meaningful value.

Best,

Ross Kimbarovsky
co-Founder
http://crowdspring.com; May 6, 2010 1:28 PM
Betty Ann said...: I found this great article about writing online. Check it out everyone; May 6, 2010 2:00 PM
Carol Tice said...: Hi Ross -- thanks for the additional info -- good to know. I definitely think talented writers might find this an interesting model to explore, if they've got the chops to make the cut and get paid.

Betty Ann -- if that is your name -- since I see your "great article" is on notorious low-payer Associated Content, you might want to check out CrowdSpring!

I'll just quote one sentence from that AC piece to give folks a flavor of the greatness: "Social bookmarking puts your article in areas where it can be access and then shared by others."

I think CrowdSpring is more of a marketplace for professional writers who deliver something that's actually valuable to readers. If that's you, you might want to poke your nose around there...; May 6, 2010 2:58 PM
Lance Winslow said...: I sometimes feel as if a lot of writers are somewhat lazy and expecting too much. As a very prolific online article writer with 20,000 plus articles written, I find the price of $10-15 more than fair. I don't find this a race to the bottom at all really. Now then, I don't call myself a writer, and feel many writers are quite persnickety, often depressed, and rather arrogant (unearned ego) at times. $10-15 is more than fair, in fact $200 is too much, even for writing on spec or within a niche. That's just my opinion based on my observations, output, and 10-years of studying writer psychology.; May 10, 2010 3:43 PM
Carol Tice said...: Hi Lance --

Well, I am sure there are some content mills that are VERY happy to have you around! With 'writers' like you, they can keep on making mega-millions off your back while paying you peanuts.

From the feedback I get from my mentees, Lance, you are very much in the minority in feeling happy as a lark to be paid at these rates.

You know Demand Studios is doing an IPO soon! Guess how much of their insane stock-market profits their writers will be getting?

The first step to stopping writer exploitation is education. Crack a Writer's Market sometime and discover a whole new world of markets that pay hundreds per article. $200 is still a very low rate in the professional writing world. I'm turning in two $800 articles this week...definitely a nicer lifestyle than needing to write 80 articles to earn that!; May 10, 2010 4:21 PM
Kelsey said...: Great info. but I'm still not sure if I would use it. I would rather write something that I know I will get paid for than take the chance I won't get paid for it.; May 10, 2010 4:24 PM
Carol Tice said...: Lance -- took a gander over to your site, and all I can say is if you're really such a smash success, why doesn't your site list any client names, or offer a portfolio of samples? Surprised you're not showing your brilliance there with some examples of your work.

You might want to read a previous post of mine, Your Writer Web Site -- Where are the Clips?; May 10, 2010 4:30 PM
Carol Tice said...: Kelsey --

Since I never write on spec personally, I'm with you! But for people who are shy about marketing their business and have some real writing talent, I think CrowdSpring might provide a chance to 'break out' of the $20 an article level and find higher-quality clients.; May 10, 2010 4:34 PM
Anonymous said...: I checked out CrowdSpring today. Signing up is easy enough except for the Portfolio part, which doesn't seem to have a category for writers. This section has options for Graphic Design, Web Design, Photography etc. What about writers?; May 12, 2010 2:51 PM
Petula said...: This is a great article... nicely written and informative. Thanks for the info; I'm definitely going to check it out.; May 13, 2010 7:12 PM
Ramona said...: I got ripped off on crowdspring. Awarded and never received prize. A lot of work for nothing; July 6, 2010 11:12 AM
Anonymous said...: Crowdspring is a scam that attracts fools.

Crowdspring too frequently refuses to pay winners.

Crowdspring has even closed the accounts of people who demand payment after being selected by a client.

The Crowdspring user contract is filled with loopholes that allows crowdspring to wriggle out of payment by closing your account.

Only a talentless idiot would waste time submitting ideas on spec to Crowdspring.

If you do not believe me, try it for a couple of months and see what happens.; July 28, 2010 10:03 AM
Sean Coleman said...: 99 Designs should be called 99% Crap. The prices are low and attractive, but if you're on a budget (e.g. $300 for a logo) there are much better alternatives than doing spec work with inexperienced "designers".

I posted a project on www.orangeslyce.com once to get my logo designed. It's all college student designers, so the cost is low like 99Designs/CrowdSpring but I was able to work with one girl over a week with several iterations (she was quite patient with me).

I'm all for supporting students starting their careers, and since they are looking to build their portfolios, they'll bend over backwards for your design, and aren't looking for a quick buck.; August 31, 2010 4:46 PM
Carol Tice said...: Don't know if you saw the poll I took on Entrepreneur's blog about businesses that had used crowdsourcing for designs or writing, but it was definitely a mixed bag. Some said never again, and others said it was worth the hassle to get the lower price. I got the feeling it's really something the recession has fueled, and there may be a lot less call for it once the economy improves.; September 1, 2010 12:02 AM
Kathleen Martin said...: Hi-Tech Hive: Worker Bee vs. King Bee

My story ends but also began again here: http://www.crowdspring.com/user/kat330/

I entered the world of crowd sourcing at crowdSPRING (cS) on July 13, 2010, with high hopes of a creative challenge participating in writing projects on a global playing field. I left it feeling used, cynical and disheartened after my account there was deactivated on September 2, 2010—the second time in just 52 days--for the heinous crime of questioning staff on project award anomalies and curious website glitches.

About halfway through this first sourcing stint of mine, I was selected for a project award on August 4th. Interestingly enough this boon occurred only a day after my first deactivation (I'd complained about several ignored e-mail queries, still never adequately answered). The timing was auspicious, but it served its purpose in nudging me to participate again once they chose to reactivate me. This time, however, I worked only on nonprofit or higher award projects.

It wasn't long, though, before project completions and award methods continued to send up red flags and suspicions of fraudulent behavior on the part of the cS staff, the buyers or both. Writing projects—mainly naming companies/products, creating taglines—are sealed in such privacy at cS that fake projects, fake awardees (ringer accounts set up only as project awardees) and outright intellectual property theft can be easily executed. More than once I suggested to cS staff that greater transparency would be a better business model for them as it would help retain savvy and talented “creatives” [their term for worker bees] over longer periods if they can see what's truly going on.

Before my final deactivation, I’d wisely gathered data on the projects I participated in. Out of my 13 projects that closed within those 52 days of activity, more than half were not awarded by project buyers but by staff itself creating a serious in-house bias issue. More than half of the 12 people actually awarded on these had joined cS less than two weeks before their respective projects ended, including myself. One winner had joined on July 25th while his/her project ended July 26th and then hasn't participated again since.

I also gathered data on another five projects I worked on but that had not yet closed when my account was yanked—aggravating because I was confident I had a really good chance at an award on at least two of them but was not allowed to log in for any updates on status. I’d had the good sense to keep a record of each submission and relevant data to help me track and investigate any use of my entries and changes in domain ownerships. This proved fortuitous as, indeed, the buyer on a high-ticket company-/ domain-naming project selected my work for an award. So a month after King Bee autocrat and co-founder, Mike Samson, branded me an “inactive droid,” this worker bee collected one of the larger awards given on any comparable project.

What makes my “How Curiosity Killed the Kat at crowdSPRING” cautionary tale more compelling is the e-mail trail of exchanges between myself and staff revealing the cS personalities involved and showing how questions are either ignored or non-responsively answered and, ultimately, not tolerated. Two among those sent by Samson himself outright threatened to deny my recent award selection, and only pressure by the Chicago buyer on my behalf allowed an honest project completion. I was vigilant enough to protect myself with information and careful research, but clearly many, if not most, involved in crowd sourcing are taken advantage of and never see a penny for their efforts.

I correspond with another participant who was ripped off by cS, and I imagine there are dozens of similar stories from creative sourcing sites. I can't speak to design projects at cS or to these other sites, but the heavy cloak of secrecy combined with a dictatorial business model that simply removes anyone who dares to question it, create an ideal recipe for fraud at crowdSPRING.; October 5, 2010 8:18 AM
Anonymous said...: Hi Kathleen, I found your post when I noticed a LOT of weirdness going on at crowdspring and 99designs. I have entered several contests and am watching the results closely. Of 15 contests that I entered and monitored, only 2 were seemingly legit. The others were awarded, then upon checking the winner, low and behold, that winner no longer existed. {droided} The rest of them were awarded to new people that had entered only 2 contests total, and won both. A lot of clipart there too.
So, to make sure these companies tow the line from here out, I have been speaking with the IRS, because, as you know, any foul play at these companies would be easily discovered during an audit, which I am strongly suggesting. If they are awarding themselves money, well, I hope they are keeping accurate records, lol. I have recorded these questionable awards and practices and forwarded them on the the IRS and another agency that I won't name, just a little security measure.; December 17, 2010 11:20 AM