I'm getting loads of requests from various recipe sites, restaurant review sites and sydicated food blogs to republish my content. As I make 100% of my living from writing I'm a little reluctant to give away my words for free, even in exchange for links. The latest is for www.chow.com which is pulling together content in Australia.
I was wondering what other peoples' experiences are with these types of blogs and whether they have found any benefits in terms of traffic or financial reward.
Should I be selfish with my content or share it with people who ask?
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6 comments:
I would share judiciously. Be picky but don't exclude the possibility. Choose places you would be proud to be seen and where the other content is of similar quality to yours.
Being asked is a whole world better than being ripped off.
I would welcome people to link you, perhaps in a paragraph summarising what the post is about (ie: i'm going to do a post about artichokes and whats his name talks about them here, and bla bla bla had this recipe) - but I don't think as a professional you should be giving out the milk for free. there are all of us out here with websites that don't generate money who are willing to do that ;)
The point is, although sharing is nice - thats how you make your living and there are ways to do it that dont
involve slightly lazy bloggers who aren't content with linking.
B
Hand to Mouth
Making Stock of the Situation
A blog for penniless gourmets
By giving your content away for free you are lessening the likelihood that you (or others) will get ever get paid. Consider it very seriously. Sites like Chow make money from their content, so why shouldn't they pay you? Back when they first launched online they tried to get me to give them recipes to reprint for free and I declined. My policy is generally to give my permission to those not making money from their sites, but that's just me.
I've turned down numerous requests to republish my content, because of the same thoughts that Amy has. Why should you give it away for free, especially in your case when you're a highly-respected professional writer? I have agreed to allow a few sites to syndicate my blog when it was done with a "read more" link so the readers of that site have to click through to Kalyn's Kitchen to see the recipe. You would have to decide for yourself whether that would be worth it to you. Generally they will "suggest" that you also provide a link to them on your blog, which I ignore, because after all, I'm giving them free content. And fwiw, I've never seen a huge amount of traffic coming from those sites. However, Chow.com might be worth it if they would agree to publish your posts with a "read more" link.
And to re-emphasize Amy's point, I would consider all such requests *very* carefully before I agreed to it.
on the other hand - there are intangibles .. you should never think you are selling one piece of writing or photo, you should see it as you are building your brand.
If you wish to build your brand through your blog then you need to increase and maintain visitors and one way to do this is to write FOR these external pubs.
If Chow is asking to use your stuff, stipulate that it is CLEARLY linked to your site and credited in a way that drives traffic to you.
That is Web 2.0 currency.
If you are a good writer, especially against the backdrop of so much not-good writing on the web, people will follow your links because they will want to know who wrote it.
Which people?
People who are looking for high quality content producers.
If Chow or other venues do not credit you properly, let them know that they have lost your business for this reason. They need YOUR content more than you need them.
Maybe let me them republish only one or two articles, then it's advertising instead giving away content.
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