J A.

Constant-Content pays writers pennies and then they keep 35 percent for themselves. Not fair.

Here's my experience: They emailed me asking me to submit "at least two" writing samples for a travel writing job, which paid pretty well. I took a couple hours to put together the writing samples, wrote a cover letter and sent it to them.

After a couple weeks they got back to me and said the position was filled, but they had another last-minute job I could help out with. The pay was really, really low, $2.50 for 100-word pieces. Even though the pay was low, I thought that if I helped them out to get this last-minute project done, that they would consider me for better-paying work.

I agreed to do the job for them and pulled an all-nighter to get it done. I worked from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. to create 3,000 words of content. After doing the work and submitting it, they notified me that I was going to be paid 35% less. Not because of bad quality or anything else. They were going to keep 35% for themselves because "that was their cut."

Perhaps a writer living in India or the Philipines could survive off that kind of pay. I don't know how it's even workable for anyone to live off that little. It was content for product descriptions for Target. I wrote 3,000 words of content, pulled an all-nighter and received about $48.00. They paid 1.6 cents a word for my content.

If you're thinking, "Oh, you must not have understood their offer. They must have told you about the 35 percent somewhere." Well, they didn't...

Here is the exact wording of their bait-and-switch offer. First, they got me to apply for the high-paying content writing gig, and then they said that the position was filled and offered me drastically lower-paid work.

I am cutting and pasting from two different emails:

"Thanks for your interest in the Travel SEO Content project. That casting call has now been filled. However, we have another project going on right now for the next two weeks. Its writing product descriptions for Target. The descriptions are about 100 words with 3-5 bullets and a long description. Each description (SKU) is priced at $2.50, but there is a ton of work available (they are bundled in batches of 10/request)."

"Were looking for writers to help out with product descriptions for Target. Each description is 50-100 words and 3-5 soft bullets@ $2.50 gross."

They told me I was supposed to understand that the word "gross" means I don't get to keep all of the $2.50 for myself.

When I said I wanted my full pay, they refused. I asked for my content back because they violated the agreement and employment offer they made me in writing. They refused. Ultimately the pay was so little to begin with that it wasn't even worth arguing.

You could look at this in a lot of different ways. The way I look at is this: Constant-Content stole my work from me and refused to pay me what they agreed to pay me. Eventually, I realized the poor guy on the phone was stuck in their office probably from 8 to 5 every day, and his hands were tied. He couldn't help me. I felt bad for him when I realized the owners of Constant-Content were exploiting him out of his time just as much as me, so I dropped the whole thing.

I wanted to write this review so that other writers don't get screwed by Constant-Content. I also wanted to feel that my all-nighter wasn't the absolute complete waste of time that it was. If my experience can help you avoid this company, then it was time well spent in my opinion.

It's hard to make it as a freelance writer, and these content mills seem like easy money. What actually happens when you rely on them is you get stuck in a cycle of crap pay and ultimately the quality of your writing will suffer as you struggle to become a "speed writer" just to survive. I wish companies like this didn't exist. They are middle-men treating writers like slaves and constant-content is one of the worst in the business.

1.6 cents a word? Give me a break... I don't care who you are, or where you live in the world, your writing and your time is worth so much more than that.