eHow Writing Platform Switch: Good or Bad?

Posted by Christina Crowe in Freelance Writing, Passive Income, Web Content Writing on May 16, 2010 | no responses

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For the past year, eHow has been continuously changing their eHow writing platform so that users have to get used to the new set of rules again and again. It first started with their article sweeps, where thousands of eHow articles were removed if they didn’t meet eHow’s new guidelines. This created a lot of frustration in the eHow community and some members lost as much as 50 articles to the sweeps. Other eHow members had their whole article library wiped out. Luckily, I only had about 10 articles deleted during the time. Freelance writers began disappearing, upset with all the hard work and effort spent in articles that just got tossed down the drain without a second thought. A few dedicated writers, including myself, continued to write for eHow.

However, the problems didn’t stop there. The eHow website started shutting down at random times of the day, articles stopped publishing, and pictures stopped uploading. Several more eHow writers left, deciding to find more stable sources of income and not wanting to deal with any more issues from the eHow writing platform. Again, many hopeful eHow freelance writers remained, thinking that all of eHow’s problems will soon be fixed. After all, they were still getting paid and they had already invested months, and in many cases, years of time into eHow.

Though previous problems did, in fact, get corrected, eHow has now suddenly decided to change their writing platform to Demand Studios. Since Demand Studios requires all new freelance writers to go through their application process, many writers did not get approved. This caused great distress, since these members would have to search for residual income elsewhere.

Photo by Vanessa Yvonne (flickr)

eHow Writing Platform Switch: Good or Bad?

Because of the drawbacks and complaints, many freelance writers wonder if the eHow writing platform switch is really as good as Demand Media claims it to be. First, let’s look at the complaints.

eHow Writing Platform Complaints

Copy editors review each article and, sometimes, send the article back for rewrites. This is a big complaint many previous eHow writers have, since freelance writers used to never get articles sent back for rewrites when they would previously write for eHow. Having to spend the extra time to rewrite an article can be a downer and may even prevent freelance writers from continuing to write for eHow.
Copy editors can sometimes edit articles so much where keywords optimized for search engines can get deleted. Of course, if your keywords get deleted in an article you send for approval, there’s no way you can fix the wrong. Therefore, your article may suffer in search engine rankings.
Rev Share articles aren’t even listed under your Rev Share tab until it starts earning. This can be frustrating for freelance writers, since it’s harder to keep track of an article when it’s not even listed in the list with the rest of the articles written. As a result, many members believe that Demand Studios is scamming them out of their money.
Earnings are often lower than average earnings eHow members would receive. Several freelance writers on the eHow forums state that they’re earning relatively less than they used to earn on eHow per article (with the Rev Share articles). The articles are also not ranking as well as many members hope. For several writers, article titles need to be typed in quotes in order for the article to appear in search listings.
Writers lose their rights to their published work. Before, with eHow, freelance writers were able to maintain some rights to the articles that they wrote. Now, on Demand Studios, writers can’t even remove published articles.

eHow Writing Platform Praises

eHow members can now earn $15 per article if it’s not Rev Share. This praise has been controversial for many freelance writers. A lot of writers state that $15 for a 300-400 article is incredibly low and even insulting. On the other hand, eHow writers used to only earn residual income from their articles, so $15 an article seems like a lot in comparison to earnings before. Then again, one of my previous eHow articles has now reached the $50 mark and is still earning. Compared to $50, $15 an article is hardly anything.
Working for Demand Studios can look good on resumes. Because Demand Studios is so strict, adding that you used to work for Demand Studios might improve your chances of getting hired for a freelance writing job.
Demand Studios is a wonderful learning experience. Since I’ve been a member of Demand Studios, I have learned a great deal from copy editors reviewing my work. In fact, my writing has improved dramatically. At least, this is what I believe. Because of just the learning experience involved, I’ll probably never give up Demand Studios.

My Opinion

While I don’t like Demand Studios’ low pay and strict copy editors, I do appreciate how they’ve improved my overall writing quality. It has been tough writing for Demand Studios, and trying to keep a steady stream of articles published is almost impossible because I’ve learned to anticipate rewrites.

However, I especially like how you can still edit your previous articles written on the old eHow writing platform, so this gives me the chance to improve those articles for search engines so that they start earning more. In the days to follow, I hope to experiment with this opportunity. I’ll post the results of my experiment in upcoming posts.

Tags: Demand Studios, eHow, Writing