New "content writers' cooperative" coming soon...FreelanceContentWriters.com

Inspired by a strategy utilized by Candace Pardue (mentioned in this post) and an expressed desire on the part of many writers for another venue from which to sell their articles, I have partnered with another content writer, Diane Penna, to help launch what I like to call a "content writers' cooperative" site.

Diane has already secured the domain-- www.freelancecontentwriters.com. Here is what the site will be doing, in essence:

It's a website where individual writers all have their own pages where they can sell articles however they would like. All transactions will be between the freelancer and the prospective client... The site itself would not handle the financials. Instead it will be a "showcase" opportunity.

There will be a main page explaining the site and offering links to individual authors' pages. Each participant will get a primary page and up to, say, five secondary pages to use as they see fit (so long as the material serves the purposes of the site and is not unrelated). Any links from the freelancer's pages will be to sites operated by the freelancer--no links to affiliate programs, etc.

Individual writers will be able to choose whether they would like to handle site design on their own or if they would prefer to simply send their desired text to Admin and have them build the pages with a template matching the main site design.

The cost? This is a cooperative and is not designed to produce a profit in and of itself. As such, donations will be accepted to defer the cost of site design and hosting. Those unable or unwilling to donate some nominal amount (maybe $5 per year?) will still be able to participate. Their pages, however, will serve up contextual ads (ala Adsense) to cover their share of the contribution.

With participation comes responsibility, however! All participants will be required to produce some number of backlinks to the site and use of the URL in forum posting will be encouraged.

All accounting will be made available to all members, so that everyone understands the cost of the site and the money any contextual advertising will be producing. In exchange for the set up, etc., those who took the lead may be able to get a share of the earnings (if they amount to anything) after expenses--with any additional overage going to an ongoing PPC advertising campaign or some other method of site promotion. The details on how to handle ad revenues, etc. are still up for debate amongst the cooperative's "membership."

That is the plan, in a nutshell. There seems to be a great deal of interest in pursuing this, and I would love to have a live version of the site operable at some point in April.

If you have any interest, or any ideas about how to make this project more effective, feel free to share them. Feel free to contact me using the form on this page. You can also leave comments, of course.

If you are a content buyer, I would really like to hear from you, too. What kind of things would you like to find on a site of this sort? How can we build it to better meet your needs?