How to survive a writing website closure: Web writers’ current dilemma

What’s a freelance writer to do, as popular web publishers seem to be dropping like dominoes? 

Web writers cringed to learn of the pending closures of Helium Inc. (December 2014),Yahoo Voices/Yahoo Contributor Network July 2014), and Examiner (July 2016). These online publishers, unlike scores of already defunct content sites, returned republication rights to writers (even for articles previously tagged as exclusives). 

Raise your hand, if you remember Break Studios, Bright Hub, BubbleWS, Bukisa, Demand Media, eHow, Hello Metro, Lifestyle 123, Mahalo, Seed, Suite 101, or Triond.

Writers who published tons of articles for ridiculously low upfront payments on many of these websites, counting on modest (but never-ending) residuals for readership, are now scrambling to place their work on blogs and other sites.

Long-time web writers who built extensive libraries on such sites as Helium, Yahoo, and Examiner are gnashing our teeth, as we ponder the odds of republished articles (even revised and updated pieces) enjoying the prime search engine rankings the first-run work held.

And, as any savvy web writer knows, top spots in web searches mean optimum readership, which spells earnings. It’s all about page views.

Here on Working in Words, the 50 Mistreated Words and Desecrated Phrases series will continue to completion, but it will be interrupted by this timely series.

Take a look at these tips for web writers facing such situations (which can be quite sudden):

• How to survive a writing website closure: Be a guest blogger
• How to survive a writing website closure: Keep multiple copies
• How to survive a writing website closure: Sprinkle old and new content
• How to survive a writing website closure: Change it up
• How to survive a writing website closure: Beat the cache flow problem
• How to survive a writing website closure: Sorting articles to republish

Stick around. Follow the blog. Bookmark the page.

Just be sure to c’mon back for helpful how-to’s on sorting, organizing, re-crafting, republishing, and maximizing those previously published (but now or soon vanishing) web articles.

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