[caption id="attachment_1352" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Screengrab from Gothamist.com."][/caption]

Joining other digital-only publications and projects, such as Byliner and The Atavist, that are hoping for a rebirth of long-form journalism online, Gothamist, a NYC news site, has announced it will pay a freelancer $5,000 to write a 5,000- to 15,000-word feature. A post on FishbowlNY pointed us to Gothamist's call for journalists who can appeal to their  audience of over one million 20-36 year-old readers in New York" with a piece that's "timely but with a shelf-life longer than a week."

Gothamist will handle the editing and production of the story, and, like sites mentioned above, they will promote the it on their site and sell it through eBook platforms (Kindle Singles, Apple's iBookstore) for $1 to $3. If the story sells big, and Gothamist makes its money back, it says it will share the profits with the writer.

Will the site's gamble pay off? It's still too soon to know if there's a huge longing for long-form amongst readers (who are also willing to pay for it), but we're certainly eager to see how Gothamist's venture works out — and we applaud them for giving it a try and paying writers while they're at it.