Revenue Share vs. Upfront Fees for Freelance Writers

Posted by Peter Berger Apr 8, 2009

“Why don't you pay me upfront per article?"

Writers who join our team often ask us why we pay royalties (aka "revenue sharing") and not upfront, per-article fees like many other media. This is a great question, and I love to share the answer because we really do this for the benefit of our writers.

• We don't want to underpay. The revenues an article will generate are not easily predictable. Online publications that offer flat, per-article fees have to pay conservatively and can only offer a handful of dollars per article so they can stay on the safe side (and pocket the long-term upside). We don't want to do that—successful articles deserve successful payment.
• We care for good articles, income or not. While some writers' objective is to attract a large audience or significant revenues, other writers have joined Suite101 for its quality-minded reputation and want to write articles on topics they deeply care for in an editorially supportive environment. We love to help writers to achieve their personal goals, but cannot pay more than we earn.
• We don't want to cross-subsidize. Writing popular articles requires learning, experimenting and dedication, and writers who have mastered web-writing skills should receive the full benefit of their training. If we were to pay inexperienced writers who weren't yet able to attract traffic and revenue extra, we would then have to distribute pay unfairly to those who had invested the time to hone their skills.
• We want to attract writers who want to partner with us in the long run. Here at Suite101, we don't gamble on future performance to pay for today's fees. We guarantee all writers that Suite101 will be around for some time—thus enabling our writers' articles to pay dividends, time and time again, for years and years to come. The residual income of some writers on the site amounts to thousands of dollars per article. These are high-quality articles targeting niche audiences and earning their writers a great reputation.

We give our writers the best tools and guidance possible to meet their objectives, and the revenue share model guarantees that writing for Suite101 remains a gainful partnership for the long run.