Dreah Writes for a Living: The AC / Xomba experiment continues

How can you do an experiment where you have been on the site for a year? :)
If you posted the same original quality on Xomba as you world on AC and then waited a year then you would make more here.

Meaning an article posted here today and and an article sold to AC for 10 bucks after a year you would make more on Xomba.
You article (considering it was quality) would make more on Xomba because you ALWAYS make money on it.

I'll prove this... and end your experiment for you.
Ask Associated Content to split their Adsense with you. They will say no. Furthermoore, they will laugh. Why? Because they make way more than 10-20, 50 bucks a year off stuff they buy. Hell, I bet they make 50 cents - $2 a day on articles(at least). So about 50 bucks a month(being really conservative). You get 10 bucks and a buck on every 1,000 views?

What I am saying is that after a year of posting you'll still be making money from everything. More like a long term investment.

I fully suspect that by the end of the year that I will be making at least as much on Xomba if not more than I make on AC.... like I said previously, and like you just said... It will take a year to get there.

Hopefully by the end of say 3 or 4 months, Unless i am nagged to stop my experiement that the numbers will begin to show.

Since you KNOW this, and I EXPECT this, why end the experiment?

Meanwhile, while a long term investment is nice, I still need moolah today.

~While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about~

I just went to the AC site and read their CONTRACT (you have to sign this before you can post anything to AC).

Here is what one article EXACTLY says:

"(d) License Grant. Upon any Rights Grant, Content Producer hereby irrevocably (i) grants to Company a worldwide, perpetual, fully-paid up, royalty-free, transferable right and license, with right to sublicense, to reproduce, publicly display, distribute, and perform, transmit, edit, modify, create derivatives works of, publish, sell, exploit, use, and dispose of such Work for any purpose and in all forms and all media whether now known or to become known in the future, the right to retain all revenue and income derived therefrom, and any and all other related rights of whatever kind or nature; and (ii) waives and agrees never to assert any and all Moral Rights Content Producer may have in or with respect to any such Work in connection with Company's use thereof, even after termination of this Agreement ..."

That's as scary a contract article as I've ever read...

This means, after they pay you whatever they choose to pay you upfront, they can do ANYTHING they want with YOUR creation now or anytime in the future, and they can GENERATE any REVENUES they want, for as long as they want, WITHOUT giving you a single cent!

And the worst part is, you'll never ever know how much money they continue to make off your back that way, year in year out...

When you sell them anything, you turn over your rights IRREVOCABLY. Even if you cancel your contract, they still have the right to sit on everything you posted on their web site and use them any way they please!

That's why, with all due respect to dreahwrites, the comparison does not make any sense because how on earth are you going to compare all the money AC makes on the backend without your knowledge with the ZERO amount that Xomba makes in that fashion?

With Xomba, what you see is what you get (at least until someone proves otherwise some day).

With AC, what you don't see is what you don't get -- by default! :-))

So I agree with Nick that a comparison between AC and Xomba really does not make sense because, besides the amount you are making upfront, I'm sure you are being DENIED (with your very own permission at that!) an untold amount more at AC.

But at the end of the day this is still a God blessed free country of course, and we can all do whatever we want to do despite all the evidence and reasoning.

With due respect and best regards to all my wonderful, courageous, hard-working fellow writers.

Just seeing for myself. For arguments sake, why not turn the tables.

If Xomba is so sure that its writers will make so much, then why not pay them upfront,and then pay...oh... 35% afterwards. I and many other writers would leave AC so fast their heads would spin!

Not complaining... or demanding..just asking!

~While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about~

I'm just making sure our users understand the difference. I've got no problem with your experiment, but it will take a long time to show for most people.

I'm not ragging on you for using AC. They have some of the best writers on the net. They also make most of their money from adsense which should show as a testimonial to Google Adsense. (Digg makes money from Adsense as well)
They have a huge site and it has been around for a long time.
When we started Xomba we never looked at AC as a competitor. They are fundementally different.

However, you know how I feel about owning your own content and earning half of what you make.

Karbon makes a good point about selling your work.
Technically, they could sell it to magazines with their name on it. Which if Xomba was to buy content and pay up front you would have to give up the rights because we would want it up forever without the option of you editing it.

I'm still interested in your results though.

With all due respect to the generous “experimenter” here, I can appreciate the fact that you are willing to make a year-long commitment, both to AC, and to Xomba in order to conduct this "experiment" for all of our benefit. A year is a really long time! So to announce to the public that you are going to do this for all our benefit and will continue reporting back to us to share your insight is commendable to say the least. I mean, I’m not sure I would be willing to do something like that.

I just want to clarify a few things for myself here. After an absence of quite some time (if I remember right) your first article here on Xomba was a declaration that you are pleased to announce that AC is offering their writers a Performance Bonus. So, “in addition to being paid up front for your article, BASED ON A MYSTERIOUS AND COMPLICATED FORMULA, you also get a bonus of $1.50 per 1000 reads!!” That sounds more to me like “give the dog a bone” than “positive reinforcement”.

“A $10 article could easily become a $50 article”. So all we have to do is sell it for $10, and then go out and peddle our a**es off to promote it too? And gee, let’s see…to earn $40.00 more, at the rate of $1.50 per 1000 reads, that’s about 27,000 reads. How long did you say they were going to offer this “positive reinforcement”? Until it isn’t positive for them anymore? Maybe if I hurry!?

Then you go on to say that you would be offended if you “went to work for the New York Times and were asked to deliver their papers too”. Excuse me, but isn’t that what you are doing here is “delivering their papers for them?” Oh, that's right! It's not the same, because AC is an “entirely different type of media and while on the internet we must do what ‘internet people’ do”. Have you ever thought about selling used cars Dear? I think you are missing your calling!!

Now just a week later, right here in this article, it seems to me that you start doing some serious back-peddling when Nick and Karbon start pointing out some facts to you. You even admit out loud to Nick that you fully expect that by the end of this experiment you will find that you “make as much or more off of Xomba”, blah, blah, yadda, yadda.

With all the double-speak I've read between the few articles you've written since you came back, I'm sorry, but I wouldn’t trust you to report the “true results of your experiment” accurately to us anyway.

Before I sign off let me ask this....not just you, but of all the writers here.....Why do you suppose "copyright" laws exist to begin with? Those laws would not be in existence today if someone, somewhere along the way, didn't realize the earning potential of their own written words, not just the day they are put on paper, but every day in the future? It took more than a few writers to fight for the right that we all have to be paid for our writing from now on!! Why would you want to give that up for $10?

Too bad you aren't as loyal to Xomba, Dhreahwrites, as you seem to be to AC cause they could always use more good writers. But I for one think you should go peddle your papers somewhere else…

Lady:P

and I started too, but like her long epic comment, mine went on too long.

So I replied in a post

http://www.xomba.com/dreah_writes_for_a_living_experiment_backlash

~While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about~

I guess my reply was a bit longer than Karbon's above, but then I wasn't aware there was a limit on length. Of course, if I'd thought ahead, I could have made my comment into a Xombyte too, and perhaps made a little bit of money off of it...except that people might not see what I had to say to you. So good luck with that tactic..hope you make a killing on it. :) I prefer to address your comments directly.

In that other Xombyte you said that writing on Xomba would probably end up making you more, IF your work gets exposure, but 50% of nothing is still nothing. "Xomba will win", but...still got that little dig in there...nice move.
Likewise, having your own blog and getting 100% of the Adsense, is the same - 100% of nothing is still nothing.

"Exposure" is everything. But what good is "exposure" going to do you now that you've sold your words to this other site? You aren't going to make anything off of it anyway! $1.50 for 1000 reads? What is that?

Xomba does not ask or suggest anywhere that we go write articles for other sites in an attempt to steer their writers to Xomba. Yes, they suggest that we add a link back to our Xombytes, and yes they suggest other ways that we might be able to draw readers to our work. But they do not suggest that we do what you are doing by "glorifying" AC.

I don't care how you look at it, selling your words for a flat fee, is not a smart business move for any writer, and for someone so bright as you, I don't understand how you can justify it in your mind.

I don't mean any disrespect to you. I know that you are a talented writer, and that you are trying to make a living doing so. I don't begrudge you the right to write on as many sites as you care to, or to accept a paltry payment for your work while you try to put food on the table. I have bills to pay too, you know? But I do have the foresight to know that I would like to continue making money off of my work.

"Positive reinforcement" to me is not "bonuses" that will never be realized, a bonus that they are free to stop paying to me at any time, and all the while they are making money off of your work?

I'm not suggesting that Xomba asks you to leave or runs you off either. In fact I think I said that they can always use more talented writers.

But I, for one, don't care to read your "daily updates" on this so-called experiment because you aren't telling us how much time, how many articles, how many words, or what other sites you write for. You aren't giving us any real comparisons. You are jumping in long enough to tell us that you made $134 last week.

Even a year would not be long enough to do a "real comparison", and you know that. Unless you were willing to divulge all of the figures and facts to us as proof, I'd still have a hard time believing it.

I think you would be very suprised by the amount of "exposure" our work is getting here on Xomba. As I understand it, they are growing in leaps and bounds. I know it's showing in my own page rankings and my own adsense earnings. So when you're 65, and AC is still making money off the work you did today, and you are making nothing, I'm thinking that I'll be kicked back, still collecting earnings from my Xombytes.

Like I said, I think you're a talented writer, and I have no hard feelings towards you at all. I'd love it if you stayed and wrote for Xomba more. But if all you write here is about AC and this "non-experiment", I won't be reading any of them.

Good luck to you.

Lady:P

But you just wasted your precious time writing something you won't get paid for...and your comment has one serious flaw. I don't have to sell my exclusive rights to associated content.... unless I want to.

I can post something there, and then here too... they just might throw me a dollar or two to make it exclusive... THAT is not worth it.

I will continue to post my updates...

Since you won't be reading it, I won't hold my breath waiting for your comments.

~While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about~

Let me jump in here, because I think you have gotten the wrong impression, dreah. I find these articles to be a crashing bore and I don't plan on clicking any ads. So, if you're making more money at AC, why don't you just write there and not bother with xomba? I'm not sure how many people are really interested in your earning updates, and I'm not sure how much money you'll be making off of ads for those updates. Wouldn't your time be better spent writing good articles that will make you money at AC?

I will let you figure out why.

~While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about~

I figured it out.

It's funny because I don't think you're a very good writer from what I've seen here. It's ironic because you're getting way more attention on this xombyte than you deserve. The only reason you got all of this attention is because nick responded to your article.

and I am done responding to you. I have things to write.

~While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about~

OK. Make them interesting this time...the xomba employees are counting on you.

did I say my time was precious? I think you said that...but whatever.

Like I said, I don't care where you write, or whether you sell your "exclusive rights" or not. At least you did admit that it wasn't ever worth it to do that.

I have serious doubts though, that they would ever pay you $10 for an article unless it included "exclusive rights". In fact, my understanding is that is the only way they will pay you anything for an article. So you can sell them for half price or something if you don't want to give them exclusive rights? Is that the way it works?

Well, I'll look forward to your update in a year...I'm sure it will be fact filled, and very enlightening.

Lady:P

Lady P, I said your time is precious... all time is precious, like mine dealing with people who doubt my motives and sincerity.

AC pays up front, and recently has added a small bonus for ongoing views. If Xomba did the same, I would have just switched over, and I hope the traffic will come, but right now, it is not here.

I do not sell exclusive rights, although I have and the difference is minimal... truly minimal... not half the price.

But it is up to the reader to believe me.

For those who have decided to not make this worth my while by wasting my time with comments that basically say, I will harrass you, but not click on your ads. I say, I realized that. That is why I have another profile.

One last comment. Would you put your entire paycheck into a 401K or would you put in a portion after living expenses?

While I see potential value in Xomba, If I were to cross over to Xomba, as it is now, I would be doing that and leaving nothing to live on.

~While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about~