Glad to hear you have other clients

But oops, from what you say, sounds like at Guardian, it’s only for as long as you keep writing for them. And so do the gerbils get chained to their wheels…

All of your responses are extremely well-put, Carol! I am more than happy to go on record in saying that I was wrong to airg call GLV a content mill, they are a revshare site. We’ve gone into great detail here on why that can be even worse.

Given all the posts up from GLV people, I think it is important to repeat this here, you are only paid as long as you continue writing for them. Gerbils chained to a wheel indeed.

Danyelle and Carol, My name is Cynthia Collins and I’m the Deputy Managing Copy and Arts Editor for the Guardian Liberty Voice. I find it interesting that both of you are on the attack, demanding to see our paycheck statements, comparing those of us who write for GLV to “gerbils” and questioning our integrity. It is rude to ask how much someone makes or to expect to see their financial records. Having said that, I can assure you that neither I nor any of my colleagues are gerbils. Danyelle, did you complete the boot camp training? It appears that you did not. I’ve been with GLV since last April.

I’m not a writer for GLV, and that model doesn’t particularly appeal to me. However, I’m offended by the disdain heaped on the writers who work for GLV and similar sites. Repeatedly telling people they’re being taken advantage of is tantamount to telling them they’re too dumb to know better. It’s fine to share information, but let’s trust each other to make our own decisions!

Not disdain, and not too dumb, Patti – too inexperienced. It’s notable that one of the Guardian writers who is excited about them has been freelancing for one month. And that everyone else who’s posted here for Guardian appears to be at a higher level than simply a writer for them.

Most writers have only their own experience in evaluating a site like this, while I have over a decade of freelance experience and have coached thousands of writers, and heard writers share literally hundreds of experiences with straight revshare in my Freelance Writers Den community.

The link I posted for the website is to an article I wrote yesterday about the arts in Russia

My point of view on revshare comes from this broader range of data and years of experience vetting many revshare sites. Most folks read my blog so they can benefit from that.

I want writers to be cautious in evaluating any straight revshare ‘opportunity’ they’re presented with. These platforms have a history of going bust, changing their payout and editorial rules, and otherwise proving unreliable sources of income.

It’s also notable Guardian is a startup – which always means more risk for freelancers. The fact that Guardian has declined repeated requests to share average writer revenue on their platform to me is a big red flag.

This was not written by bots

This is also a platform that by their own description, puts writers through a 12-13 article ‘tryout’ and then rejects 70-80 percent of them. Guardian is a guaranteed ripoff for all of those writers.

That’s a ton of free content being harvested from a lot of hardworking writers without a dime of compensation. I have cautioned writers since 2008 that writers should not supply free “sample” or tryout articles to sites that profit from them, and nothing I learned here changes my mind on that. We’ve seen many sites through the years ask for 2-3 samples, but Guardian takes this free-content harvesting to a whole new level of writer exploitation.