Summary

The article discusses the challenges and strategies of writing for guaranteed minimum payment deals, emphasizing the importance of adapting to the audience and platform for financial success.

Abstract

The author of the article reflects on the transient nature of guaranteed minimum payment writing deals, drawing on personal experiences with various publications. Despite the lucrative payouts initially offered by platforms like Yahoo Travel and a travel agents' publication, these opportunities often diminish or disappear as market demands shift and editorial policies change. The article advises writers to prioritize adaptability and market awareness over personal writing preferences, suggesting that success in freelance writing, particularly in clickbait journalism, requires understanding and catering to the audience's desires. It also highlights the importance of writing content that provokes engagement, whether through love or hate, and the effectiveness of listicles in capturing reader interest.

Opinions

The author believes that guaranteed income writing deals are unsustainable, as evidenced by the collapse of such models at Huffington Post, About.com, and Yahoo's writer programs.
Writing for clickbait outlets is acceptable as long as the pay is good, but writers should be prepared to leave when the financial incentives dry up.
Writers should set aside personal expression and write in the style that the client demands, focusing on what the audience wants rather than on their own creative fulfillment.
Understanding the audience is crucial; writers must study what is published, what receives comments, and the nature of those comments to succeed in clickbait writing.
The author suggests that writers should not be indifferent to their work; they must engage readers emotionally, whether through admiration or controversy, to ensure their content is consumed and discussed.
Listicles remain an effective format for engaging readers, as they cater to the skimming habits of online audiences.

Guaranteed Minimum Payment Writing Deals Rarely End Well for Everyone

Staying in the game requires you to lead the pack with really good clickbait writing (oxymoron intended)

It’s okay to break out of your authentic, helpful, useful writing patterns once in a while. Especially when there’s money involved. The important thing to know is that when a guarantee of income is involved, it will not last. History has proven that. Even the mighty Huffington Post could not maintain such a plan. Nor could About.com or the early Yahoo writer programs. Forbes is still hanging on, but they have reduced writer payments more than once in recent years.

So the money will not last and neither will the pool of writers. Contract terms will be changed to force some out, while others will politely be asked to leave. Think of it like a game of Survivor. You must outwit and outplay in order to outlast.

I’ve been writing for three decades and have written my share of garbage stories for garbage rags. I spent 18 months writing for Yahoo Travel for eyebrow-raising, per story, upfront payments. The problem was that the travel editors didn’t want to be like the rest of Yahoo. They wanted to be Travel and Leisure. What we produced was like a bowl of Chex Mix with cubes of tofu mixed in. Chex Mix connoisseurs ain’t eating no stinking tofu. The travel section was eventually merged with Lifestyle where they understood what Yahoo readers wanted: a steady stream of junk food and nothing but junk food, thank you very much.

After that, I was brought on board by a publication exclusive to travel agents, to write consumer travel pieces, i.e. clickbait. The scheme was that the clickbait stuff was being sold to MSN in order to keep the publication solvent. It was the first publication I’d ever worked for where freelance writers were actually fired from time to time. The money was good, but when the publisher called me on the phone one day, dropping f-bombs about photo choices (someone else’s, not mine), I simply stopped accepting assignments. If I wanted grumpy bosses calling me, I wouldn’t be a freelancer.

While there are never guaranteed ways to please any set of readers, let’s get down to how you can survive in the upside-down writing world where page views matter most.

First, get over yourself

I don’t mean to be harsh, but it doesn’t matter what your successes (or lack thereof) have been writing anywhere else. If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times: The key to a successful freelance writing career (where success is measured in both contentment and dollars) is the ability to set aside your desire to express your deepest self and write the way the client wants, no, needs you to write.

There is no shame in writing for a clickbait outlet, as long as the money is good. When the money dries up, you leave. It’s a simple proposition. I never advocate for article mills paying pennies. The only reason to accept that kind of pay is when all the decisions are yours (like when you’re building your own blog.)

Second, know your audience

Study what is published. Study what is commented on. Then study the comments. Find writers on the platform who are having success and read their work. Don’t copy their ideas, but let their success inform your list of ideas and your approach to writing for the outlet.

The audience of clickbait outlets is rarely the same as those found on more serious platforms. Quite frankly, they are a tabloid consuming group. We’ve all picked up those rags standing in the grocery checkout or clicked on “You Won’t Believe What These 17 Stars Look Like Now.”

There’s no shame. Your success depends, not on your judgment of those types of stories, but on your ability to produce them. It’s hack writing at its finest.

Hack: 1. n. person capable of finding creative solutions to ordinary problems or able to break down the barriers that deny access to everyone else. 2. n. shortcut; a more creative method of solving an ordinary problem. 3. v. the act of finding or creating shortcuts or breaking barriers that deny access.

There is no room for indifference

You cannot write from a place of indifference. Your readers will feel it in your words. Do you want to know why this stuff is gobbled up in such enormous quantities?

Clickbait readers crave a place where someone else’s life looks either enormously better (as in celebrity worship) or stupidly worse than their own. Give them anything else and your work will not get clicks.

Start fights by writing about fights

Let’s get down to the specifics of what to write. If you’ve read any comments on a clickbait story, you no doubt know commenters argue with each other. They call the writer horrid names. They bully. It’s their platform, you are just there for their entertainment. Give them a fight so they can choose a side and get busy spewing their thoughts.

Make them love you (as in, they propose marriage in the comments)

I once had a marriage proposal over a recipe for chicken and dumplings. My dumplings are good, but I didn’t expect that. The key here is to give them something so valuable or so entertaining that they take notice there was a human being involved in the production of the story. Be personal. Touch them. And if all else fails, give them comfort food.

Make them hate you

This one is far easier than making them love you in terms of finding the click point. If you can ignore the nastiness, you’ll find you can easily generate clicks by letting the reader think you are stupid or don’t know what you are talking about (from their point of view.)

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t research your facts; it means you should always include at least one thing they can dispute, think you made up, or find objectionable. It’s actually easier than you think.

I’ve got a story running right now on another platform with 23,000 page views. It was factual in every way, yet some readers think I made it up, others jumped to the conclusion that the woman in my story was rich because she lives on a lake. I never said she was wealthy because she’s not, but that one detail was all it took to rile up the haters, and therefore the clickers.

Sometimes it more about what you don’t say than what you do say.

Put things in lists

The listicle age is far from over. It’s not great writing, but it’s easy reading. Skimmers gonna skim, no matter how enticing your headline is. Make it easy for them to do that and they will love you. And clue them to the list in your headline. Use a number, preferably an odd one, and never over 50.

Takeaways

This life we’ve chosen has its ups and downs financially. Don’t let anybody ever tell you otherwise. When there is money to be made from a guaranteed payment plan, jump in up to your eyeballs and play along. If it gives you a financial cushion to continue pursuing the writing you really want to be doing, you can’t afford to not play along while it lasts.

Besides, it’s good practice to write for a different audience. It elevates your skills in ways you never imagined, all while adding to your visibility.