Trazzler

[zoomusic]

Does anyone on here write for trazzler.com? Travel site. Fairly new.

[jeffo]

No, but it sure looks neat. Cheap, but neat. :)

[zoomusic]

Yeah, it does look neat!...they've put an ad up in my city on craigslist a couple times in the past 2-3 months...I'm trying to figure out whether to bite or not.

[jeffo]

I'll bite today and report back if I hear much. :)

[Fatal Serenity]

Looks like a great new site. As of now, they don't have much money in their budget to compensate writers, but this is certainly a site to watch.

[zoomusic]

I was looking at it some more this morning. The March 'contest' (10 articles/$250 contract) theme is "geological anomalies."

Hmm...something to chew on today as I'm out and about.

[zoomusic]

I'll bite today and report back if I hear much. :)

Just call him 'Scribe Scout.' ;)

[jeffo]

Heh. Interesting. I've dug through and read everything I could find on the site. They're saying that they are hiring writers, but the only way they hire you is after you write for them and have your writing submitted and placed on the web site. They also imply that the more you write, the better your chance of getting hired.

Of course, my first thought is, "Gee, if you have a lot of people writing free articles for you in applying, why in the world would you ever pay anyone?" But they claim to be. And that whole contest thing, again has the same theme--write lots of stories for them, post the stories on-line to help the company, and then maybe, just maybe, if they like you, they will pay you to write some more.

It could be completely legit, and they freely admit that their future model is based on some pay and some free work, so who knows where they're going. I'm going to go ahead and submit a few stories and see how it goes. Of course, just because they don't hire me doesn't mean they're not hiring others!

[inkkognito]

I'm wary of any site that wants me to write, and preferably write a lot, before paying. It's just too darned easy for them to get dependent on free content.

[zoomusic]

I think I'm going to go ahead and submit a few pieces...as a beginning freelancer it seems like a good place to get some travel writing clips/samples. I'd like to do some local sort of travel writing pieces, and I'm making a list of places I eventually want to query. Trazzler posts a by-line. The pieces are fairly short, and it doesn't seem like they'll take long to write. Eh, what can it hurt?

I had a most excellent idea today for a local "geological anomaly," now that I figured out what that means, lol.

[jeffo]

And it's actually a bit tricky and challenging to get as much content across as you can while keeping a mood and setting--and keeping it under 100 words!

That's why I figured I'd throw a few articles in--at 100 words each, if they do nothing but post them and don't tell me a word, at least I haven't lost hours of time.

[zoomusic]

And it's actually a bit tricky and challenging to get as much content across as you can while keeping a mood and setting--and keeping it under 100 words!

Sort of like a little 'non-fiction writing exercise,' lol. I'll take that, at this point. Anything that will get me quicker with the game of composing non-fiction at this point, I'll take.

It's a whole new world for me.

[wandergirl]

I signed up, wrote a couple pieces -- one was even featured in their newsletter -- submitted myself....and then, nothing. And I'm definitely an experienced travel writer. Honestly? I think they're getting LOADS of free content this way. I haven't heard of anyone getting hired for that tasty-sounding $1000/month contract.

[jeffo]

That's exactly what worries me, wandergirl.