Another content-writing site to avoid TOPTENreviews

There's an ad making the rounds at Craigslist for a company called TOPTENreviews. It seems like a pretty standard content-writing opportunity: You review products, more or less.

I applied a while back to this company and quickly received an e-mail from one of its editors. The editor was interested in having me write for TOPTENreviews, and sent me a list of available topics and a rundown of company policies. The way the site works is like this: You create your own pages, and fill them in with content. Each page is about a specific topic or category. The editor who contacted me, thought I'd be a good fit for the company's "home equity loans" page because of my experience writing about mortgage loans and real estate.

The only thing not clearly stated in the information the editor sent me was how much the job paid.

So, I asked. Of course, the answer wasn't good: Though TOPTENreviews was unclear in its craigslist ad, it turns out that the company only pays on a revenue-share basis. You get a percentage of ad revenue generated by your page.

This, of course, usually equals next-to-nothing. So I passed on this writing "opportunity."

Writing for revenue share usually doesn't pay off. Yes, I write for Suite 101. And, yes, that's a bit of a contradiction. But it's the only revenue site I'll work with for now. (I've already written 40 stories for Suite 101, so I don't want to abandon the site until I at least reach 50 stories.)