PTW Sites: How to Choose the Best Ones for You

The internet offers many opportunities for writers who want to publish online and be paid for their work. Pay to Write websites vary in quality and pay rates, and understanding the differences can help you choose the best places to show off your writing.

First, Know Yourself

Are you just starting to develop your writing skills or are you an experienced writer? Honesty about your abilities is the first step to finding the best sites to display your work. If you don’t feel you can evaluate your own work, find someone you trust to do it for you. It can spare you the frustration of failing to meet the site’s requirements.

What do you want to get from a site? Do you prefer to be paid a set amount for each piece, or are you willing to see the income pile up over time? What kind of feedback do you want? Comments and kudos from other writers are nice, but they don’t necessarily offer useful critiques that can help you improve your writing.

Do you want to be published instantly, or are you willing to wait for each piece to be read and evaluated? Sites that permit instant publishing are the most popular, but they are also the most crowded and competitive, and tend to pay the least.

Do you want to build a reputation for your writing? The quality of the sites where your work is published can influence how others judge you.

Tall Tales and Rumors

How often have you read an enthusiastic plug for a website you never heard of, and signed up without knowing a thing about it except for that one recommendation? How many times have you been stung? Does the person who’s talking up a site have something to gain from your membership, like referral credits or a percentage of your earnings? Have they even used the site long enough to know how it works, and whether it pays reliably?

People can and do carry on vendettas against sites they’re unhappy with, even if the site isn’t at fault. Doing a Google search for articles and forum posts will help you decide whether one person’s complaints are legitimate, or whether glowing recommendations are to be trusted.

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

At a guess, I’d say that probably 90% of the complaints about any site are a result of not reading the FAQ and the User Agreement/Terms of Service. There’s no excuse for being the idiot who starts downloading their treasures from from all over the web, only to find out that the site requires first publishing rights. There’s no excuse for finding out-too late-that the site now owns your material and you no longer have the right to publish it elsewhere. Or for discovering-again, too late-that you can’t delete your work if you decide to leave.

Sometimes the material covered in the FAQ is also part of the User Agreement. Are there points on which they contradict each other? It may be that one or the other simply hasn’t been updated lately, and the owners don’t realize there’s a conflict. If the lack of agreement can affect you, or there’s anything you don’t understand, ask about it. A failure to respond is a red flag. If the owners won’t answer questions for a potential user, they may not be any more responsive to members. An even bigger red flag is no contact information.

Is payment clearly explained? What is the minimum pay-out? When can you expect to be paid? Is there an on site way to keep track of your earnings? A very low pay rate combined with a large pay-out minimum is another red flag. Sites profit from members who get discouraged and leave without having made enough to be paid. If you’re getting only pennies, and have to wait until you’ve accumulated $50. or even $100., the chances are good that you will never see any money.

The bottom line is to know what you want from a Pay to Write website and how well any site can meet your expectations. Read every scrap of information you can find, especially the User Agreement/Terms of Service. Go over them with a fine-tooth comb. When you do choose a site, go slow. Consider your first month or two a trial period for learning all the ins and outs that can make your experience a fulfilling one.