eHow is folding into Demand Studios

1. 73

   N. Ramiusposted 14 years ago

   The free eHow publishing is vanishing to be replaced with Demand Studios. It seems some people who met certain criteria were grandfathered in to DS and everyone else has to apply to them. To write for eHow means one has to be accepted into Demand Studios who looks like they have a tough join requirement.
   
   Anyway thought I'd share.

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      blue dogposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      it's very easy to join.
      
      if one can write.

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         Uninvited Writerposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Demand Studios turned me down

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            SimeyCposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            LOL no way - one of the most illustrious writers on HP? It's their loss!

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      SimeyCposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      On the plus side, I'm pre-approved and all my articles still get the WCP as they were written before April 5th, 2010. However, I am thoroughly confused as I've received about three emails (so far) from eHow - the new program does not have a very clear pay policy and although they mention 'freelance' information, they don't really mention anything similar to the WCP program. I'm going to have to wait and see what happens when my account transitions to the new Demand Studios account and go from there!

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         The10DollarMarkposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Well if I read the FAQ properly...
         
         -current articles will continue in the WCP program
         
         -articles done on the DS platform will receive revenue share as well
         -articles done on the DS platform may be eligible for upfront payment, though (from the wording) it seems like if you get upfront you can't get revenue share
         -revenue share payments are done monthly. upfronts are done twice a week
         -You can choose to write your own articles or to take an assignment from a list

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            lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            -articles done on the DS platform will receive revenue share as well    NOPE
            
            -articles done on the DS platform may be eligible for upfront payment, though (from the wording) it seems like if you get upfront you can't get revenue share   WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS, IT'S ALL UPFRONT.
            
            
            -revenue share payments are done monthly. upfronts are done twice a week   YES. ANY ARTICLES APPROVED M-T-W ARE IN YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT ON FRIDAY. ARTICLES APPROVED THURS THROUGH SUN ARE IN YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT ON TUES.
            
            -You can choose to write your own articles or to take an assignment from a list  YOU CAN CHOOSE YOUR OWN TITLES--AT $5.00 A POP.

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2. 71

   AEvansposted 14 years ago

   I also write for e-how but I won't be writing for Demand Studios too much, they will be retaining all rights to your work.

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      blue dogposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      which is compensated by their payment platform.

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         AEvansposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Well that is true There are pros and cons to it

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      donotfearposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      
      Yes, this is self-defeating. E-How has shot themselves in the foot on this.

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         The10DollarMarkposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I wouldn't necessarily say that. Some writers don't care if they no longer have rights to their work as long as they're paid. Ehow will probably still be ok.

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   ani_techposted 14 years ago

   This seems to be a bad news

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4. 73

   N. Ramiusposted 14 years ago

   Figures I only join on like April 1. Already made money off my 1st article too (.35 cents). Not sure if I'll apply to DS or not though.
   
   Those with eHow hubs should probably revise them

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      AEvansposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Don't worry it will be o.k.

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5. 60

   William R. Wilsonposted 14 years ago

   I'm not liking the shift either.  In general I don't like to sell all rights to my work, I've done it only once and I received a good bit of change for it.  I can't find pay rates anywhere in the info I've received from Demand Studios, so I'm really skeptical.

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   Jule Romansposted 14 years ago

   I received an email with a terms of use and privacy policy link, and a statement that continued use after May 8 constitutes my agreement to these. Does that mean that Demand Studios has accepted me?

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      N. Ramiusposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Nope. All it means is that the terms of use governing your previous submissions to eHow will change to these new terms and if you do not accept them, then delete your articles. Otherwise keeping your articles on the site after that date is an implicit agreement to these new terms.
      
      You should have gotten an e-mail I think if you had been accepted into Demand Studios. I received one stating I had not met the requirements but could apply if I chose.

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7. 96

   Jule Romansposted 14 years ago

   Thanks. Yes, I did receive that other email. Just didn't read my inbox carefully. :-(
   
   I applied to Demand Studios back in January- way before I had any Internet writing experience. I was turned down. I understand it is a one-time thing.

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8. 61

   ReuseItAllposted 14 years ago

   I have been a writer at eHow who was recently pre approved at DS. I've visited and joined Hubpages today at the advice of other eHow writers. I am  not sure what to do yet with DS. I write articles that require my own photos which I cannot use at DS. I loved writing at eHow because I retained the rights to my work and I really don't like that aspect of DS too. I'm exploring other sites and am on the fence about removing my work at eHow at this point. We had no idea that this was about to happen so who would say that the site would fold entirely and all of my articles would be gone??

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   andromidaposted 14 years ago

   I think ehow will see the negative impacts of strict DS approval procedures very soon.Anyway, it is just their business strategy.

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10. 56

    wrenfrost56posted 14 years ago

    I don't write for either but it sounds like a bad move to me.

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11. 72

    Research Analystposted 14 years ago

    Do you know of any other places on the web that pay for writing? I have found these so far:
    
    Hubpages
    Gather
    Xomba
    Triond
    Bukisa
    Brighthub
    Infobarrel
    Helium
    Associated Content
    Live Journal
    Textbroker
    Suite 101
    Examiner

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12. 82

    SweetiePieposted 13 years ago

    I have written three articles for ehow's new platform with Demand Studios, and I have to say I really like it.  Yes you do sell all rights, but you can get upfront payments of fifteen dollars per article.  All in all I do not think this is so bad, especially since you can make a nice little amount writing a few articles.

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       Denseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Hi SeetiePie,
       I read that payment is from $5 to $25. How does one get $25?
       Do you direct your readers from here to there, or vice versa?

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          lilmisssunshine23posted 13 years agoin reply to this

          To be eligible for $25 payments, you have to be approved for special, non-ehow payments.

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          lilmisssunshine23posted 13 years agoin reply to this

          To be eligible for $25 payments, you have to be approved for special, non-ehow payments.

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13. 82

    SweetiePieposted 13 years ago

    At the moment I am still writing for Demand Studios and enjoying doing this.  Some of the titles are funny, but you simply do not take the assignments that do not make sense.

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14. 69

    lrohnerposted 13 years ago

    Sorry--I've been away for a while and just saw this.
    
    Demand Media owns eHow and a bunch of other publishing sites. It also owns Demand Studios. Demand Studios provides content for DM-owned sites and also contracts to provide content for other clients. eHow did not fold into DS--DS just did away with the "anything goes" mentality of eHow. To write for eHow now, you must be approved by Demand Studios.
    
    Once approved, you can write eHow articles for an upfront payment of $15 per article with no ongoing rights or RevShare. There are a few (very few) RevShare titles available, but you can suggest titles. If your suggested titles are approved and if you write them and if they go through editing, you get $5.00/article. Not really worthwhile in my book.
    
    Having said all of that, Demand Studios rewards writers who can actually write with access to premium writing gigs that pay $20 to $30+ for each 400 word (minimum) article. I have written for Answerbag, Pluck on Demand, GolfLink, Trails, Travels, LiveSTRONG, ModernMom, Walden University, SFGate, Yellow Pages, etc. through Demand Studios. They have also recently taken on Chron.com and USA Today.
    
    Their standards are rigorous, but honestly if you can cut it--they pay twice per week right into your PayPal account. And...you don't have to do any linking, marketing or promotion for the articles. Once they accept them, you wash your hands of them. Done. And if you want to write 100 articles in one week and then nothing for six months, that's cool too.
    
    There are many folks at DS who write 10 articles per day. Even if those folks do not have access to premium assignments, that's a minimum $150/day which is $750/week (if you only write 5 days/week), which is almost $40k/year. And those folks usually have other gigs as well. I write $20 to $30 articles almost exclusively. At 10/day, that's a minimum of $1,000/week on a five-day week.
    
    So, DS/eHow now is really only beneficial to those writers who can write high-quality articles pretty quickly. (Although, if you only write two $15 articles per day for them, that's still $10k per year. Not bad....)

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       Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Nice to see you around again, lrohner. How's the blog going?
       
       Just curious - how do you get approved for the "premium" writing gigs?  I'm not a prolific writer so I don't like giving away the rights to my articles - at least not for $15.  $30+ sounds more like it, though!

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          lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Hey there Marisa!
          
          IDK what the exact criteria is for getting premium gigs, but I know that you have to have had a certain number of articles approved with them and your scores (yes--writers get rated on each article) need to be decent. They put out calls for authors when they take on a new client, and you just need to let them know that you're interested and that you have some experience on the subject. I'm pretty sure that you can apply for some of them specifically, like LiveSTRONG--they're paying $25 per article.

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    Len Cannonposted 13 years ago

    I never did anything with Demand studios.  It seemed incredibly disorganized and I wasn't really sure what they wanted.

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       lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       LOL! What they want is for people to select titles and write good content around them. Pretty simple. With something like 8,000 writers and 1,000 editors, they can't be that disorganized.

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          Len Cannonposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          What  I saw seemed like mostly random keywords with no indication of what the client was looking for.  Maybe things have changed, I haven't looked in a long time.

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             lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Hmmm..random keywords? Not sure what you're talking about. They don't give us keywords--just titles to choose from. How can a title like (hypothetically) "How to Fry an Egg" be ambiguous?
             
             Here's a sampling of some of the titles in my queue that I'm writing now:
             
             Lodging in Denver, Colorado (eHow)
             Teenage Girl Bedroom Styles (Modern Mom)
             Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse (LiveSTRONG)
             The Best Restaurants in Honolulu (Yellow Pages)
             Creative Marketing Ideas for Apartment Communities (SFGate)
             
             And for each of these publishers, they have pretty detailed Guidelines and templates. So I'm just not following you. Sorry. This stuff really and truly isn't rocket science.

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                Len Cannonposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Okay.

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