There are several paid to write sites available for freelance writers. Seed is another site that offers writers the opportunity to earn money from their writing. Seed is owned by AOL and their claim to fame is that they offer writers various opportunities to not only get paid for their writing, but, that they also allow writers to be paid for page views. Not so fast. Seed is a fun site, they do offer a range of opportunities, but for most writers the site will not work well for them. Here are some of the reasons:
Limited Topics
Seed offers several categories for writers to submit their writing. Reportedly these include health and medical, legal, lifestyle, travel and a host of other titles. Personally, I’ve been registered with seed for about three months. The only category I have seen populated is Lifestyle. The articles are all similar in nature (mostly “I interviewed at” or “What it is like to work at”.
Are you a writer or a photographer?
One of the most frustrating parts of Seed is that nearly all articles require some sort of images. We are not talking stock content here, we’re talking pictures of you – for example, here is the requirement for one of the articles:
“1. A photo of yourself at the office (if you can), photos of inside and outside of office building highlighting unique features. Only one photo can be uploaded when the story is submitted, so please note what images you can provide. Additional photos will be requested by AOL editorial team once it is selected. Photos must be in-focus and high resolution.
2. Your contact info for our editors so we can follow up with additional questions if necessary (e-mail or phone number). This information will remain confidential.”
Not so much. I can’t take photographs since I’m legally blind. Could I get someone to take them? Yes, probably but that would negate the $50 payment for the article wouldn’t it? This is excellent pay for a $800 word article, but frankly, even if the titles were someone I HAD worked for, this would be a major issue for me.
Payment is weird
Seeds payments are pretty bizarre too. I was lucky enough to recently “win” a selection where they requested a blog post of about 150 words “selling” a product. The general idea was “Great Christmas gifts for “you pick”". It was simple to write up and the pay was $10.50. Not bad for 10 minutes (or less) work. Simply find the product and decide who it’s most appropriate for. No problem. I wrote the article, submitted it and within 24 hours I was told that my article had been selected.
The minimum payout on Seed is $10 so I thought fine, I might as well request the payment. It took 8 days to get a $10.50 payment from AOL to PayPal. How weird is that? I’ve dealt with hundreds of sites and clients that pay via PayPal. Most of them take 24 hours or less to pay.
Summary of AOL Seed
Seed is a content farm, make no mistake about that. For most writers, regular contributions are not possible given the limited offering in terms of topics. The pay is good especially when you realize that most of the articles are first person and simple topics. The requirement for images will prevent some writers from utilizing this system. For others, it will not be a big deal. Payment is slow, but for those who contribute regularly, the $10 payout level is good.
About Doreen Martel
Well-rounded freelance writer who contributes to various blogs, paid to write sites and revenue sharing sites. Doreen is legally blind and has worked at home for more than 10 years. She uses the lessons learned from this experience to enhance her writing and share information with others.
Contently Portfolio
[...] while I still agree with the original Seed Review we put up a few months back, I am not sure that most writers want to be bothered looking into this [...]