Canada’s meeting place for freelance writers and creators

Established 2010

Blogging can be a thankless task. Depending on what your blog is about, finding an audience can be hard, and keeping them engaged is a lot of work. But some writers manage to start something great, attracting healthy traffic and building their own online community, one blog post at a time. Some make a bit of money, some don't.

Pay a Blogger Day aims to reward people who create great online content, "because they want to, not because of money and fame." The site asks readers to do something on November 29 to give back to bloggers, either by donating cash or buying merchandise from their site.

The site's Bloggers page lists blogs that accept donations, including sites like The Oatmeal and CitizenReporter.org, and smaller sites, listed on the "recently added" tab. You can add your blog to the list from the Bloggers page, after taking a short test that estimates your blog's earning potential.

The company behind the site is Flattr, a "social micropayment" service that lets users click on a button to make a small donation on blogs and websites to support content they like. As a direct-payment system, it calls on readers to put their money where their mouth is (or where their eyes are), and it encourages writers and creators to make the internet a more compelling place to be.

And, perhaps most importantly, it recognizes that blogging takes real time and effort and that writers and other content creators deserve financial compensation for their work, online and off. Asking readers to pay up one day a year isn't really enough, but getting them thinking about the value of online content—and the people who create it—is a good first step.

By Emma WoolleyThe Huffington Post is evil, right? It makes a lot of money from content it doesn’t pay for. It exploits writers and undermines their right to earn livings. It contributes to the overall devaluation of writing and especially web writing. I knew all of this and I still wrote for the Huffington Post.Most of you probably want to know…
[caption id="attachment_2185" align="alignnone" width="580" caption="Screen shot from Freelancethanks.com."][/caption]Working independently has its benefits, but consistently receiving encouragement and thanks is not one of them. Editors don't always take—or have—the time to give positive feedback and, when dealing with freelancers, some…
I was having coffee recently with a colleague.Okay, actually, in my case, it was hot chocolate. Hey, it was cold outside and I needed a sugar hit. But we freelancers haven't yet come up with a better expression than "having coffee" to denote a casual meeting. "Having tea" sounds too lightweight. "Having hot chocolate" sounds too juvenile. "Having…
Work more.That's the advice Krystal Yee shared in a recent Moneyville.ca post. Over the course of 2011, she has boosted her income by 50 per cent by adding 20-30 hours per week of part-time and freelance work on top of her full-time job. She took on two part-time writing gigs, freelance graphic design work, and she wrote on her own blog (earning…
When Kai Nagata quit his job at CTV back in July, reaction from his fellow journalists was mixed. Some praised his bravery in leaving what seemed to be a good and stable media job to strike out on his own, while others were put off by his manifesto, calling him naive or an attention seeker. Nagata wrote a follow-up post one day later, in which he…
Gather a bunch of freelance writers together and it's almost always the number-one topic of conversation. The general public may expect us to be dissecting esoteric topics like the influence of Faustian legend on contemporary media, but for most of us it's: "Got any new tips for getting paid faster?"Several posts ago Story Board highlighted the…
If you've ever had trouble collecting payment from a client, this video is for you. Mike Monteiro, co-founder of Mule Design Studio gives his provocative (and sometimes profane) tips for protecting yourself as an independent contractor. His audience is a group of web designers at a San Francisco design conference, but freelancers of all stripes…
A fellow freelancer forwarded me a Craigslist ad the other day. I thought it might be for a pair of skis or that used barbeque I've been meaning to get. But it wasn't. It was a publisher on the hunt for a freelance editor. Compensation to be decided based on the submitted quote, it said. I quickly deleted it, but then I got to wondering: Is this…
[View the story "Canadian Journalists React to Kai Nagata's Manifesto" on Storify]

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