Today I was on a writers forum that I frequent and I came across a thread from a “newbie”, that said he made over $10,000 this month freelance writing. As most of us freelancers are always looking for opportunities, information, and tips that will help us to earn that kind of money, the thread attracted several readers immediately, including myself.
Writers are also a curious bunch, so after reading the original post, one of the readers went to his site to check out how he had earned this much. She replied to the thread and wrote about her take on his site. Basically, this writer lures other writers to his site by bragging about huge earnings and encouraging them to check out his site, and from there pay him $100.00 a month to take his writing course so that you too can make as much as he does.
I realize he’s broken no laws and in fact, some would even say he”s clever for coming up with this idea to make himself money. I however, see this as a scam. I see no difference between that and me telling you I have the secret to make you rich, pay me money and I will tell you to do the same to others. Promise to make them rich if they pay you to know how. Am I making any sense?
Now if the writer had good leads and great advice it might or might not be worth some form of payment, but to ask starving writers to pay that amount is ridiculous. Most of us on that forum share information and leads. If you don’t want to share, don’t come and brag about how much you made and then ask us for money when we ask how you did it.
Just my personal opinion, I do not like referrals systems where the only way to earn is to get others to join, I don’t like MLM’s, or other such schemes. I want to do a job and get paid for my work. I am not a saint by any means, if I come across an opportunity that looks good, I’ll pass it on to my fellow writers whether or not I earn extra for referrals, but I won’t bother people and spam for the extra cash. There is way too much of it out there and I’m sick of it. I belong to a couple of social networks and every message is trying to get me to join this or that and promising blah, blah, blah. I’m a writer, not a con artist. Enough already!