Naked Writing, for a Fee
This is not a post about bloggers in their undies. I wanted to get your attention, and it is my understanding that a provocative tittle does the job. Bare (pun intended) with me for a second, and I will get to the real nakedness of writing, which I believe still remains mostly unexplored.
Conceptually, what I suggest is the equivalent to a live cam-show, instead of a full post-production movie, but for writing. That is, instead of reading a finely tuned article on a specific topic, one would login to a blank page, with a desired topic, and experience how the author shapes his ideas, until that article is completed.
I can see how a passive reader that just wants to quickly read on the specific topic may find it unbearable to wait for the author while he keys in each word on a blank page, but on the other side of the spectrum, I can see how real fans of that author would enjoy, not just the end result of a post, but the making of it.
So naturally, one could condemn this idea to be just a fringe case of writing voyeurism. And it may just be that for now. But I believe it hides something much more powerful than that. Think for a second how most written content is created in today’s internet era. If you don’t really know how a lot of the content is created today, speak with anyone that works on internet marketing and they can quickly quote you the cost to produce an article, given the topic, language, and the number of characters desired. In fact, there are incredible companies that have become content farms for hire. Think of them as the Uber for writing. Personalized, finely tuned, one-stop-shops for anyone that needs words on any given topic. In other words, written content has been commoditized. And as such, writers take a second stage, and are paid to produce words, following the specific guidelines provided by their contractors, leaving their signature at the entrance, in exchange for a fee per character.
I don’t think content farms are to be blamed for any of this. In fact, I believe their businesses are cleverly capitalizing on how internet works today. And they create a reasonable way of finding decent writers, paying them for their words, and matching them with the clients that need to create content. But aside from traditional publishing and this peculiarity about internet, there are very few venues for writers to make a buck.
I didn’t just want to write about this, without proposing a solution, for anyone out there that wants to give it a try. I have had the idea in my head for some time, but just recently, some clever creators out there (see below) made me realize that it is something feasible:
- Sign/Login with twitter.
- List topics you want to write about or invite audience to provide you with suggestions
- Set your fee per post (a standard length to start).
- When enough audience suscribe to post, set your schedule using Teleport Sundial to accommodate as many in your audience as possible.
- Provide your WritingStream, ala Streamium, but for writing.
PS: I am sure a lot of writers will cringe at the idea of opening up their creating process for a fee. But I hope some would enjoy the challenge. I surely would love to be on the receiving end of some of the people I really enjoy reading from.
This story was originally posted on my blog.
