Become a Paid Writer For Make Use Of!

photo credit: Alun Davey

Are you hopelessly addicted to the internet? Do you Digg, Stumble and blog on a daily basis? Do you Twitter while you’re Powncing?We are in the process of expanding our little online empire here at Make Use Of and we are always looking for more writers to help us turn the site into something bigger and better than ever before.

Are you wondering if you fit the bill?

Well you can easily find out by taking the following Make Use Of entrance examination:

• Are you totally obsessed with computers and the internet?
• Are you constantly telling people about the latest new cool web app that you have just found online?
• Are you the first person people come to when they have a question or problem about their PC or the internet?
• Are you good at explaining stuff and getting your point across in a neutral unbiased sort of way?
• Can you write regular pieces on a long-term basis? At least one lengthy post (or a couple of quick ones) a week?
• Do you have a good working knowledge of the Wordpress blogging platform?
• Do you have a panic attack if your internet connection goes down for two minutes?

If you answered “yes” to all of these questions then you are the person we’re looking for!

Other requirements which would endear you to us:

• You make yourself available as often as possible online and you respond to emails and instant messages in a timely fashion.
• You are available on at least one instant messaging network (Skype or Google Talk preferred).
• You respond well to us editing your work and offering constructive suggestions and perhaps the occasional constructive criticism.
• You have a sense of humour and a team spirit, ready & willing to help out.
• You actively participate in responding to readers comments to your published posts.
• You keep us continually notified of your progress through the internal staff wiki.
• You bribe us with laptops and other electronic goodies (OK, this one was a joke!)

So now you’re probably wondering what we can offer you in return:

• Full credit for the article.
• A link to your website or blog at the bottom of every article in the form of a footer.
• A link to your website from the MakeUseOf homepage (see ‘MakeUseOf Authors’ in the sidebar). That’s a highly regarded link from a PR 6 website. But to qualify for this perk, you need to give us a story at least once every 10 days. More would be excellent and would qualify you as our new best friend!
• Your RSS / email subscription box on the Make Use Of Subscribe page so people can sign up for your website / blog.
• We will actively promote your website / blog wherever possible. With over 14,000 Make Use Of subscribers (and rising fast), you’ll be sure to receive quite a spike in traffic to your site.
• Performance-based monetary compensation. Payable via Paypal at the end of each month. Payment will be about $10 a post (depending on the length, detail and usefulness of the post). But if your article is extremely popular on places like Digg then you will also get a bonus from us to say thank you! We try to be as generous as possible within the limits of our budget. As time goes on, we will consider slight pay increases if we are happy with your work.
• Full editorial support when writing your articles. If you have any problems with your articles, we are happy to help you out.
• Starting from February 2008, we will be spending some of our monthly budget buying and giving cool gifts to our writers, such as T-shirts, USB sticks and anything else that we find that is great. So as you can see, we do try to be really generous to our writers!

If you are interested, just drop us a line at : post4us[at]makeuseof.com with links to your website / blog and also tell us why you would be a good fit for the MUO team. Maybe you could also suggest some topics that you’d like to write about.

If you don’t have a blog to show us, we would ask you to write a no-obligation sample article of around 500 words so we can assess your writing skills. If we like the article, we will hire you, publish the article and pay you. If we don’t like it, we won’t hire you, won’t publish the piece and promise never to publish it behind your back.

Current Specific Vacancies

We’re currently looking for someone with artistic skills who can draw funny geeky cartoons for our “Geeky Fun” section. But real artistic talent - no stick men and hand painting!