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Topic: About.com Guides
| Author | Message |
| 1978 | Posted – 1/14/2008 9:55:05 PM | show profile Any thoughts on this? Wondering if it's legit and worth it in terms of the time you have to put compared with compensation (they say you make $700/month, which seems high) ... Would love to hear from someone with first-hand exp. or just what you've heard. |
| Canadiana | Posted – 1/14/2008 10:51:44 PM | show profile My sister-in-law's been doing it for a few years and enjoys the work. It's definitely legit although the content requirements and deadlines are plenty. I think she makes over $1K most months which is based on a number of factors - $700 is the minimum pay. |
| redheadedone | Posted – 1/15/2008 11:01:06 AM | show profile It really depends upon your topic- the way their business model is set up, you as the guide need to acquire jpegs for each piece. If you're doing a fashion, beauty or anything celebrity guide, you, as the guide need to pay for any and all photos that will be used in a piece. If you have to write a twice monthly long article and "blog" a few pieces in between, it can set you back a pretty penny. I had looked into being a guide. What stopped me from doing it was the following - 1) It was going to cost me between $500 - $750 a piece to acquire photos for pieces. Multiple that by the minimum of four postings, and I would have been losing money. 2) I initially had technical problems- when I contacted IT- they took over 24 hours to answer and didn't answer all my concerns or assist me with anything. You see, their IT dept is ONLY available via EMAIL. They also have LIMITED hours- If you're having a problem with the CMS upload, or the HTML code isn't being read or translated properly, and you're on deadline...you're up the creek without a paddle. |
| maphop | Posted – 1/15/2008 11:21:38 AM | show profile The few people I know who have tried it have felt that they simply didn't earn enough money for the work involved. They also complained about the ability to get the folks at About.com to return calls or emails which hampered their ability to get their work posted (and, in theory, earning hits/money.) |
| 1978 | Posted – 1/15/2008 1:33:26 PM | show profile Thanks, all ... |
| rozwrite55 | Posted – 1/15/2008 1:37:15 PM | show profile I tried out for the celebrity fashion site a few months ago. It was a nightmare. I was lured in by the $725 minimum pay but you have to get to that point first. The training is 15 days of unpaid torture. You have to learn how to set up the site, which is not really html as they imply. So you are learning as you go along, meeting deadlines every single day and relying on you online mentor to help. I have other paying deadlines I have to meet so I couldn't devote all day every day to the training, which is really what it requires. After 5 days and 5 stories and blogs, I was dropped because I missed a deadline. It's frustrating because of all the time you devote without compensation. I have heard of people who make a pretty good living as a guide but they have all been doing it for years. I think if you have the time, you could probably do it successfully but if you do have other obligations, it's a struggle. |
| redheadedone | Posted – 1/15/2008 2:02:03 PM | show profile As I said their business model sucks; for the writer anyway. I wanted to clarify something that I wrote earlier, when I wrote that "It was going to cost me between $500 - $750 a piece to acquire photos for pieces. Multiple that by the minimum of four postings, and I would have been losing money." I meant that it was a cost between $500 - $750 for photos per article. You need to buy permissions from photo agencies, and that's costly. So....if I was making a base of $750 per month, I'd actually be spending between $1000 - $1500 a month on photo permissions alone. And I make money how?? |
| aoscruggs | Posted – 1/15/2008 10:52:25 PM | show profile | email poster I'm in the middle of the tryout process now Read Rozwrite's posting carefully. The tryout is a killer. I'm not sure whether I'll make the cut. One thing, though, the audition has helped improve my online writing. |
| D_S | Posted – 1/16/2008 4:16:15 AM | show profile It's best suited to the expert who wants to make some side money out of his expertise. |
| prdiva | Posted – 1/16/2008 3:07:43 PM | show profile I'm confused...why can't you just get images from PR people? Who in their right mind would pay that? |
| writesonwater | Posted – 1/17/2008 4:57:32 AM | show profile In terms of making money out of expertise, it isn't the most efficient way to do so. If you're a doctor, for example, a couple appointments might cover it and not require jumping through so many hoops. I would think it would be very well suited to someone who wishes to become (in their opinion) very widely known for their expertise, "Rick Gerard, M.D., your About.com guide to the colon." |
| aoscruggs | Posted – 1/17/2008 12:20:50 PM | show profile Didn't make about.com cut As I figured, I failed the audition for the guide. The process is extremely labor intensive and the training materials aren't as clear as the recruitment editors would have you believe. That said, I would go through it again, Now I have a much clearer idea of what that kind of job entails, and I'll be better prepared when I apply for other web editor/writer jobs. |
| redheadedone | Posted – 1/17/2008 4:22:59 PM | show profile PR diva- you can't get the photos from pr firms because a lot of times they've borrowed or paid for the photo for their own use. And if a celebrity is out and about in a particular outfit, there are plenty of times the pr firms don't have a photo of it. Trust me, I looked into that route. |
| nuluvbug | Posted – 1/18/2008 1:28:51 PM | show profile I was offering the chance to try out for a position as an about.com guide and I was so busy with assignments pouring in (poor me, I know!) from other publications that I didn't have the time to dedicate to the online tryout. as a previous poster mentioned, it was incredibly labor intensive and you don't get any guarantees that your 15 days of work will get you the job. I learned a long time ago, don't work for free. And the 15 days of creating articles, learning the format (which isn't html, but something else that was complicated in itself to learn), was more than I had time to attempt for a job that I wasn't even guaranteed and when it would have meant losing money by turning down other assignments for those 15 days. If I had done it, it would have easily been 6-8 hours a day for those 15 days to create the prep site that they review before deciding whether to hire you. For me, it would have probably been worth it in the long run because I already have lots of articles for a regional publication that I write weekly that I could have rewritten for about.com. (they were asking me to write a city site for my own city.) but to get to that point was too labor intensive for me to manage at that particular time with all of the assignments I had from other editors and am luckily still getting. |
| mareyeka | Posted – 1/19/2008 5:44:49 PM | show profile | email poster cant' figure out what they want A friend of mine is a guide; she loves it and does extremely well. I applied to be their guide on death and dying as this is an area of expertise for me. After they accepted me into the trial, they told me that it wasn't death and dying any more, it was now Palliative Care. Ok, that's fine with me - I'm an ex-palliative care nurse. I spent two very hard weeks doing a fabulous job. I got nothing but praise from my mentor. The articles I wrote were top notch. I had figured out their system so I didn't have to ask any questions. My site looked great. Although he didn't say it, my mentor felt I was a shoe-in for the position. I was rejected. Why? Because I focused too much on dying. My mentor was shocked and actually went to bat for me but no go. I had covered every angle of palliative care there is from the history of modern palliative care to what to do after someone has died. It was damn good work, but they told me that I focused too much on the final few months of life. Obviously they have no idea what they want or what they are looking for because THAT IS WHAT PC IS! Anyway, I took all my information and set up my own site with it. Their loss. They still don't have someone for that site. I did apply for another topic, headaches and migraines, but I pulled out after a few days of the prep because my heart wasn't in it. |
| D_S | Posted – 1/20/2008 4:49:04 AM | show profile That's sad, Mareyeka. |
| uneedabob | Posted – 2/3/2008 1:10:53 PM | show profile | email poster My experiences don't quite tally with what other people on this board have said. I sailed through the training period to be the Dinosaurs guide, and now my site has been live for a few weeks. Training isn't nearly as onerous as has been implied here, but you do need to digest a lot of cocumentation and not allow yourself to be become overwhelmed. I think the application process is deliberately intimidating, to weed out the fainthearted. (And no, I didn't have to devote myself full-time to the site during the training period, but then again I write very quickly.) One important thing about About is that it's owned by the New York Times, which is a big plus in my book. And the compensation model seems very fair to me. The key is, if you consider writing about your topic "work," you may not be suited for the job. For me, writing about dinosaurs is so much fun that it just doesn't seem like a work/deadline situation. And, despite what other posters have said, I've found About's tech support/mentors/community to be very responsive. The bottom line is, if you're wiling to be patient and put in the time, an About.com site can be worth a lot of money a couple years down the road. You can't walk into this expecting immediate gratification, $$$-wise. Email me off the board if you have any questions...I don't check the MB forums as often as I used to. |
| chara | Posted – 2/19/2008 11:37:23 AM | show profile | email poster I agree with Uneedabob I've been an About.com Guide since May, and it is, bar none, the best work experience I have had. My income is high enough that I now work for About full-time (far more than the $725 minimum monthly payment) - and it really doesn't feel like work to me. Like Uneedabob said, you've got to really love your topic to do this job. About looks for passionate experts to write for them, and that dedication to passion shines through in their Guides. For me, Prep was tough, but mostly because I wanted the job so much. About's in-house code is simple to use, especially if you are already familiar with HTML. Also, the part about having to buy your own photos is not really true anymore. About.com now provides free photographs from Getty Images, as well as images from other sources for specialized areas, like the Health guides. And how heavily your site relies on photos at all depends a lot on your topics. So if there's a topic open that you love, that you can write about from an expert perspective, and that you have a real passion to share, then I'd say go for it! |
| joyeuxnoelle | Posted – 2/19/2008 9:04:11 PM | show profile | email poster rights? Does About buy all rights? |
| jonquil38 | Posted – 2/20/2008 1:35:03 PM | show profile | email poster buying rights No, they don't buy all rights. They have close to exclusive rights for the articles on their site while they pay you. If you publish a book with your About.com work, they get part of the proceeds. And there is probably other stuff in the contract, small print, etc. But you can write other stuff and post elsewhere, too. I write the German food site and have been live 4 weeks. They want 2 or more recipes per week (which I cook and photograph) and 2 or more blogs per week. My try out period was over 3 weeks long (they gave us an extra week for Thanksgiving) so I had to have even more content than usual. Then, my contract didn't come, so I lost a week there. Then it was Christmas, the busiest time of year in my day-job. So we are just starting to see any money, but my thoughts: Having to write and meet deadlines helps teach writing every day, no excuses. Will look great if I put together a book proposal. Is $700+ I wouldn't have otherwise. I learn a lot about the internet and how to promote myself/my site. I have more confidence in my abilities. I can take this job anywhere. The preparation period will screen out weak players. I took my prep notes, printed them, put them in a binder, labeled the daily deadlines and marked them off as I sent them. This gave me a sense of accomplishment. I fixed everything that my editor asked me to, no complaints. Sometimes I felt like I was working in a void but when I asked for help, I received a quick response. Why they took me over someone else? Well, Wolfgang Puck didn't apply. |
| coastalwriter | Posted – 2/22/2008 3:26:04 AM | show profile Wolfgang Puck is from Austria, not Germany! |
| coastalwriter | Posted – 2/22/2008 3:26:07 AM | show profile Wolfgang Puck is from Austria, not Germany! |
| coastalwriter | Posted – 2/22/2008 3:26:10 AM | show profile Wolfgang Puck is from Austria, not Germany! |
| jonquil38 | Posted – 2/22/2008 10:31:11 AM | show profile Wolfgang Puck Well, that's good. My web site covers all German-speaking countries. Austria is covered. |
