[Display site] WriterBeat.com

It seems to be a pay-for-content site, but the catch seems to be that only the top 10 articles get paid - and those articles are chosen by 'recommendations' which makes it sound like a popularity contest. There's no mention of rates either, or types of articles, length, content etc. It's all a bit vague in that respect.

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, we want our visitors to take the conversation to a deeper level and potentially get discovered by our partnering publishing firms.

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This was an interesting statement.

The two 'partner publishing firms' I'm assuming are the two linked at the bottom of the page - Permanent Press and First writer - the later being a directory, not a publisher.

Permanent Press : http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132421

First Writer : http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133257

Now, I'm curious why they think that writing articles on a website would attract the attention of a press that publishes fiction.

It feels more like a kid with an idea and a wish than a scam.

The title "WriterBeat" seems like it is aimed at writers - which seems like an odd title if the aim of the site is to host content.

It sounds like it is aiming to be a cross between the Huffington Post & reddit .... except there is a tiny chance that you could make $10 by writing for it.

I think they'll have to radically rethink a few things if it goes live .. if they have "No interest in dictating what appears on our home page" then it will become viagra commercials pretty much straight away ... especially because 20,000 spam accounts will be voting all the spam up every second of every day.

(If you don't believe me .. look at how many spam accounts there are on LinkedIn - all with alleged photos,names, job histories but are simply posting the same spam over & over. They'll be upvoting the crappy content too.)

I hope it works out for her, though. It seems a little ..er.. niave .. to announce that they don't care what readers see on the front page!

Mac

C.P. Foster said:

What interests me here is her desire to promote writers to publishing houses. If she pulls that off, she can keep the $10. :-D

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Yes, but how is she going to do that? By letting writers publish any old shite that can be voted up by anyone? That's not showcasing writers. It's not connecting writers with publishers. It's throwing some random articles out there and hoping that someone else sees something in an article about the best way to treat verrucas and thinks 'you know what, I bet that person could write a really good techno thriller.'

I just don't see how it's going to work. I've been googling this Autumn Cote all morning and I can't find a record of her working in publishing, so I'm not sure about this at all.

C.P. Foster said:

What interests me here is her desire to promote writers to publishing houses. If she pulls that off, she can keep the $10. :-D

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This has been a pipe dream of websites that show/display writing since before the turn of the century. It doesn't work for two simple reasons: publishers can't rely on the curation of crowdsourced/owner-sourced websites; and publishers are already drowning in submissions. There's very little incentive for them to pay attention to such websites.

- Victoria