Do they like you? Do they really like you? If you write it, they will come.
I’m interested in this. And I want more gutsy writers to know about it too.
I want to know who’s doing their PR and who else knows about it. Are they getting the word out? Will it catch on? I want to try it, as an experiment, to see if random strangers will take to my gabbing. From the quick browse I had yesterday, I think the column idea is a good one. Build recognition so that readers that liked you before, will come back.
I don’t think the commission RedPaper takes is all that much. If you have a PayPal account and $3.00 you can start reading. What a concept. Pay as you go reading. For as little as .02cents an article. I’m in.
Sorry, I put too much work into my writing to give perpetual, royalty-free rights to this website, or any others. There are quite a few of them out there. Though a good idea in concept, what I’d love to see sometime is a collaborative venture by writers that allows us to post without giving it away. It’s very cool that you posted this, Jen. I just caution writers to check all Terms of Service guidelines before providing content to any sites. Oh, and by the way, hello 🙂
Hi Rabbit!
Great to hear from you. Yes, but all means I agree with you that writers should check the terms over carefully. But I also like the concept of what if? Naturally I wouldn’t write them major features I thought that I could sell somewhere else. But as one is namebuilding through BootsnAll.com, Kinetic Travel, World Hum, or other free outlets, why not just try it and see if you get abite?
The debate about whether to write for free or not is a lengthy one. But I am not beyond it. And I think that this isn’t writing for free. I’m confident I could atleast get a buck. 😉
Anyway, it pulled me in. If anyone else has heard of it, let me know. It’s an interesting concept. If named writers were contributing, it’d make it all the more interesting. But I’ve been grabbed even without the hype.
Hey, Jen. I hope my comment didn’t sound negative. It looks like a cool website. I don’t have any problem writing for free, just with giving away rights. I’d certainly buy anything you write 🙂 Hope you’ll tell us if/when you post something there 🙂
They ask for non-exclusive rights, so you can do whatever else you want with the material. The only downside I can see is that it also inclues all sublicensing, which means that if this thing really takes off, they can do something like publish your work in an anthology of material from the site and you wouldn’t see any additional money.
Amy, thanks for reading the fine print. Lots of online publishers ask for other rights. I think that as long as the writer knows what he/she is giving up, and that their chances of publishing this writing anywhere else for all or first time rights (usually magazines and top newspapers) are next to nil, then they’re fine to move forward. Some writers just want to practice writing, some want to show their friends and family. Others like me (in this red paper case) just want to experiment with it.
Naturally, paying gigs rise to the top of the priority list, but we’ll see. I’ve got it on ONE of the back burners of my super stove.
They treat you really good there at Redpaper.com. Once you post an article you have the option to ‘Deactivate’ it and have it pulled from availiablity, if you ever want to. So I think you should not have any problems. 🙂
Thanks for giving us the inside scoop, Dragonhood. At this point I barely have time to keep up with this blog, but I will keep RedPaper in mind.
Hey everyone. My name is Mike Gaynor. I am the founder of RedPaper.
A friend of mine told me about this blog.
I just wanted to clarify a point because it seems to have a lot of people confused.
RedPaper does not take any ownership of anything, from anybody, ever. Period.
All we ask users for is a ROYALTY FREE LICENSE from you to allow us to have your work on our site. Simply stated this means that you won’t charge us to have your content on RedPaper.
It would seem self evident that if you are posting your content on the site that you would authorize us to have it up there, but that’s not the way it works.
Probably the most pressing reason for us not to want any ownership of anyone’s content is liability.
To summarize, RedPaper is nothing more than a venue, a delivery mechanisim, a store front for creative work.
That’s it. Hope this helps. Feel free to shoot me an eamil if you have any questions.
Re: Mike Gaynor Post
Sorry, Dude. Close, but no cigar. What you say about rights granted is only part of what is granted. As Amy noted, the sub-licensing provision is a problem if a person’s writing really becomes popular. You then have the right to publish it in any form or format without paying the author a dime.
Say someone comes up with an idea that guarantees anyone can take off weight and keep it off with no diets, no pills, no gimmicks. Folks on the web page can purchase the article but you can then publish the writing in any other format and take any royalties or profits therefrom and put them in your pocket. Not a good deal, me thinks.
If you remove the sublicensing clause and limit the license grant to only the term during which the article, etc., is being offered by the author on your site, I would post an article about losing weight, etc., without diets, pills, or gimmicks.
No, I am sorry Roger. You may want to consider going back and finishing up that degree in jusisprudence.
The reference to sublicense means that if YOU license your content to somone then we don’t owe that person any money either.
Frankly, would like to have as distant of a relationship with the content posted on the RedPaper site as is possible. The liability far outweighs the benifits.
If you can think of some additional language that would help us achieve this end AND it is actually based in some case law, then I would love to include it in our T&S.
Hope I cleared that up for. If you’d like I’d be happy to put you in touch with our attorneys. They’d be happy to explain it to you.
Let me know,
Scoop
is the red paper from the writer’s blood?……look forward to your future refinements.
–B.E.Singer
Author
I do children’s stories. Do you think anyone would be interested in paying for my short stories? I do PayPal.
I do children’s stories. Do you think anyone would be interested in paying for my short stories? I do PayPal.
I’m obviously quite late to this discussion (apologies), but RedPaper and the company I work for – Lulu.com – keep coming up in the same breath (yesterday they came up in the same WSJ article).
So I’ll just weigh in briefly. Lulu.com is another site that allows content creators to sell their own work directly to consumers (at their own price, without giving up any rights). Lulu’s focus is more on physical deliverables like books and CDs. It offers a free self-publishing tool for writers, musicians, artists, etc., and charges a 20% fee for each transaction. Content creators set their own price, and can take work ‘down’ instantly, as well as monitor their sales in real time.
I think RedPaper is a cool idea, especially for shorter content. The majority of our transactions consist of people buying physical books at this point, rather than electronic versions. But I’ll be interested to see what happens.
Stephen, thanks for chiming in. I look forward to checking Lulu out. It’s never too late to be a part of a discussion here. Especially the way our comments boards keep things fresh on the left column.
Hello Jen, I’ll take your last comment as an invite to join in as well, if that’s okay?
I only recently learned of RedPaper and was instantly worried, as I was already in the middle of building and funding my own similar site, which I have just launched today. If you like, please take a look at http://www.poplish.com.
I like the RedPaper site a lot, and was also happy to learn that I had a different take on the basic idea behind it, mainly in the pricing and where the site’s commission comes from, as well as the implementation of quality control measures to attract more pure readers to the site (and not just people wanting to post their own articles), along with other smaller differences.
I won’t explain it all here as I don’t want to monopolize space in this discussion, just trying to get the word out about the site to people who might be interested.
Cheers, and I’ll be checking out Lulu as well, Stephen!
Yet another variation on the theme is gitMe. Personally published premium content combined with a personalized web search engine. Membership’s free until you want to buy something.
Check it out…
https://www.gitme.com
— Paul
I am starting to market individual stories from the coming book by Abraham Blumenfeld, Ps.D, titled “And we won the war?”. At 87, he is recounting the wildest, funniest, unbelievable foibles of the U.S. Navy in WWII. Because of the time lapse,some of it may not be remembered 100% factually, although the basic theme of each chapter, did occur.
This is Mr. Blumenfeld’s initial writing experience and is taking much longer than he had anticipated. At his current rate, it may be a year or more before it’s completed. So just for the laugh of it, I would like to offer the book, chapter by chapter, as completed, at a nominal cost of $2 per chapter. Is that a possibility?
Gene Shafer