Article factories

Now, there’s something about calling something a factory that really turns me cold.
Yeah, I get that people want content and they want it fast. They want readable stuff that catch the interest of potential customers. And because it might take thousands of reads for just a few of those to ultimately spend money on something, there needs to be some serious traffic going on.

I get contacted a couple of times a day with offers to either fix up my website to look attractive to customers or to write articles for me. Oh, let’s get you hooked with $1 per article, real fucking quickly, and never mind the content. The article making factory can write shit for me.

Um, Yeah No!

And before you get mad at me; let me just say that I do get it. Your strength may not be in writing stuff and since there are people who do little else but write stuff, then why not? It’s the perfect content creation partnership — if it’s done right. Trust me, I do get that. and I’m not saying it’s all bad. But it is not for me.

My reaction to these offers is simply: No thanks, not interested, go away, please.

If I don’t have hundreds and hundreds of blogs on my website, it’s because I haven’t written hundreds and hundreds of articles. It’s not because I couldn’t find mass produced content for cheap. It is because I don’t want content that is not mine or completely endorsed by me on my site. I don’t have time to sift through sludge to find nuggets. I really don’t. and to be completely honest, I don’t trust content aggregators to know what’s right for me, my brand, and my website. I’m really not all that interested in numbers.

I read enough bad content online to know I don’t want that! And I also see so much crap out there that I do not want to contribute to this cluster-fuck of awful that happens when demand goes from quality to quantity where no one benefits. Except for the Blog writing farms that pay pennies for creativity.
You know, you get what you pay for.
An article I pay a dollar for will not be a good one no matter how you slice it. And in such a case where the read is actually quite interesting, I would feel uneasy about not showing the creator enough respect to pay them properly.
I would happily link to the article, endorse it, and see that people find their way there. Sigh. Old fashioned? 🙂 maybe. Then so be it.

Cookie cutter blog farms? No thank you. not for me. Sorry.