This an email that was sent to everyone at Food Blog S'cool:
Hello--
I've been enjoying food blog s'cool as a lurker. I write for Weblogs Inc (home of luxist.com, engadget.com and other large blogs). We are planning a food blog and looking for foodies interested in blogging with us. There is a small amount of pay involved. Your blogroll is such an amazing list of talented foodbloggers, I thought I'd check in and see if any of them would be in coming aboard. Our dream is to create a blog that brings together food-passionate people from around the world who have a variety of opinions, cooking styles and levels of expertise. You can have interested people email me for more info.
Thanks,
Deidre
deidrewoollard@gmail.com
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16 comments:
Well, I'm definitely interested and I sent her an email but ... her email address is giving me pause. Why a gmail account and not a corporate one?
Cool. Thanks for passing this along.
Cathy--Deidre said she "writes for Weblogs Inc", she didn't say she was on staff. You can find her posts on Luxist.com
Funny, a co-worker of mine and I were just talking about Weblogs, Inc. and their model. Interesting that food blogs have become enough of a subculture to warrant a slot in the WI empire. Or maybe it's interesting that it's taken them so long.
They're definitely a force. I think they recently had positive cashflow, or made some milestone amount of money, or something along those lines. Do they just want one food blogger or many? I think they have some particular quota of daily posts (12?) that their writers have to meet. Or maybe I'm confusing them with their chief competitor (who will, I'm sure be writing soon as well).
i post about food too. i eat them.
To write for Weblogs inc, they provide you with a contract that can be terminated at any point. The money they paay you is based off of how many posts you make per month...the lowest is something along the lines of $75 for 100 posts , which to me is 3 posts a day, every day, for a month.
If your unable to post even that much, your pay is pro-rated.
What turned me off is their "competition" clause, where it stipulates that you will not run or start up a blog that "competes" with the that you have signed up for.
I was able to get a waiver for accidental hedonist, but not for any future blogs that I have ideas for, which is why I turned them down.
That non-compete clause sort of puts a damper on their offer, doesn't it? Thanks for posting Kate.
The Acknowledgments section leaves most writing open--I'm not sure what they consider competition since they allow for "other business", in particular
"without limitation, writing for print publications and for personal web sites, and recording for distribution online, by podcast, CD/DVD, and other recording media."
uhm, what else is there exactly, other paid commercial web gigs?
The contract spells out that you can write for other parties as long as you don't compete with Weblogs Inc.
But that's the issue... they never really defined what "compete" is supposed to mean. Does writing an article for Gourmet count? Does writing posts for Gothamist count? They never clarified this. It was too large of a gray area for me.
Amy - Thanks for clarifying.
Kate - Thanks for all that info!
That's a horrible contract. They are essentially looking for work-for-hire (as in they own all the rights) and they pay far far less than any reputable publication pays for freelance work -- ie, work that you're able to take and then resell to other clients. And on top of that, they throw in a non-compete clause? They should be ashamed of themselves. I'd rather write my blog posts for free and own what I write, thank you very much.
It WAS too good to be true!
I wonder if there's a mandatory attendance clause for the weekly 'morale-building floggings' in the fine print somewhere...
very short story:
When I was negotiating my first work-for-hire book contract, the publisher asked, "Do you have an agent?" I didn't and said so. Having seen the difference between the money offered to the guy in the suit v. me, I should have hung up and gotten one...as should anyone considering signing a contract as absurd as this one. I can't imagine how it would be worth going to the site, let alone writing anything, for four bucks a post.
BLTN - Andrew, now that you DO work for them, can you tell us about it?
(Or Sarah, or Nicole?)
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