what's on craigslist? part 2

We are creating a new e-magazine to promote environmental awareness. We want to be unique, and hip on our own way to attract readers and encourage them to go green (our future site www.coconot.com). Help us in this endeavor to help our world be a better place. We need talented writers to work from home. We are looking for writers for the following topics:

- Environmental and ways to be green, eco-consciousness
- Ways to recycle, repurpose, restyle
- Music industry
- Travel industry

Requirements:
-Write 300 word article
-You must have a reliable internet connection and should be able to respond by email promptly
-You must have strong English and writing skills
-You must have great understanding about helping the environment by recycling, repurposing, restyling.
-For music and travel industries, you also need to be knowledgeable about this 2 industries. Should be able to talk about travel places, ways to save and be in budget, travel experience, tips, etc. On the music industry, what's new, hip and what's next, discovering unique/independent artists

We will check your work via copyscape. Your article must be 100% unique content. You will write for blogs and articles for the magazine.

This is a freelance work, we pay $2 per article. Please send a sample of your work. Email me if you're interested or if you have any questions.


Besides the Craigslist personals section, the "jobs" section in the writing and editing category is another interesting place to visit in CL. The above posting is from a California-based (well, who knows, really?) recruiter of article writers. As the posting shows, they are looking for 'excellent" writers who could write 500-word, plagiarism-free articles that could pass copyscape. The posting intentionally skipped to say that the writers must be dumb enough to not notice that they are being insulted and taken for fools.

After reading this post, I proceeded to the next posting which said:

I have to agree with writers who have previously complained about how other unscrupulous people are taking advantage of Filipino writers.

Here in the Philippines, local magazines pay writers as much as P2 per word. A 500-word article should therefore be paid P1,000.00 or $25 at the current exchange rate. Even local newspapers pay write-ups by column inch. Talent does not come cheap.

Anything less than this is an insult to talented Filipino writers. A $2 compensation for every 500-word article that is plagiarism-free and "well-written" should be viewed as a big joke, something that should be laughed at.

and still another posting in response to the above:


Kudos to the writer who posted this one.
From the hearts of faceless, nameless writers who had been scammed, victimized, and relentless taking advantage of with our talents, we say Thank you!


--only shows how the good, excellent Filipino writers are being consciously screwed. But can we blame the writers? I must admit I am even tempted to "pounce" on the $3/300-word article posting I saw in the same section--hoping against hope that the poster would actually PAY each article. Write three articles a day and get $9. Measly , yes. Not commensurate, yes. But if you get paid doing this, is that not better than not being paid at all? I have not been scammed in this way (yet...and i hope not to be) but the scamming small -time internet entrepreneurs are all over -- different nationalities, not only Americans, even fellow Asians.

The prices of commodities (e.g gasoline and rice) in the Philippines again soar to unimaginable heights. The president is giving assurance that there is no reason to panic or hoard and that anyone caught hoarding /overpricing will be jailed. Long before her voice has faded in the airwaves, the rice dealers have already changed the price tags. Do we really believe they would change it back to the old price? Yes, they would....but not before making a killing for a few days. And we definitely could not postpone meals for a few days.


Lesser evil. Always the only choice left.