Helen Jones on the subject of providing writing and any other creative talent for FREE for organisations and companies that offer ‘exposure’ in return. I agree wholeheartedly.. If we choose to share our books for free for a period of time or share them on our blogs that is our decision. I think there are times when contributing your work to a high profile organisation can be beneficial but you need to consider it very carefully. For example always happy to contribute to a charity anthology and certainly would consider an offer from J.K. Rowling! I have been approached three times by large health organisations who offered me all sorts of support if I would blog about certain topics that they would share on their websites.. Which I did and they did not even tweet the blogs that I wrote just took the copy and ran.. Head over to Helen’s post and read it all and then perhaps offer you opinion on the subject.
I don’t usually post rants on this blog – it’s not really my thing. I actually wasn’t even going to publish this piece at all, but I had a short online conversation about it with Ali Isaac, and so here we are. And perhaps this isn’t so much a rant as a collection of thoughts. But I feel the need to talk about the idea of ‘free’, and the seeming value placed on writing these days.
I would like to be clear that I am not talking about choosing to list our own books for free, nor am I talking about writing guest posts for other blogs. This is because I believe that offering books for free can be a strategic marketing tool leading on to more sales, especially if you have several titles on offer – Nick Rossis recently featured an excellent guest post on the subject, well…
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Wonderful article. Here’s what I left on Helen’s blog:
Thank you for writing this poignant article. You speak for many of us writers. And I concur with your statement about hardly breaking even with the cost to put out our book with professional editing, covers, etc., let alone being paid for our writing time. We must enjoy what we do to continue doing it without looking at the dollar factor, but when brand name companies want to suck out our knowledge for free, that’s where we must draw the line. 🙂
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Absolutely.. XXS
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Thank you for the reblog, Sally! It’s been very interesting to read the comments and feedback from so many other creative people who, like you, have been approached to work for free, or had their work undervalued. And I’m with you – if JK Rowling approached me to do something, I think I’d be on board 😀
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Thanks Helen.XX
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