Zujava Shuts Down: The Annoyance of "Old" vs "New" work

The annoying thing about writing for external content sites-- as opposed to merely writing for your own blogs and web sites-- is the general lack of control.

A while back, I wrote about another content (and revenue) sharing site-- Zujava-- closing down. Whereas it is both sad and annoying to lose another online venue, there's also a secondary annoyance associated with this news: Now everyone has to scramble-- and waste a lot of time and creative energy-- to retrieve, revise and republish their content from that site in a new location.

The "annoyance factor" lies largely in the fact that such closures and moves means that writers have to "back burner" all new work for a period of days to months to deal with "old" work... or simply face losing lots of previously created content; watching effort and creativity head down the tubes.

Revenue sharing sites that actually pay contributors for their content seem like a great idea-- on paper-- but very few turn out to have the staying power to be "in the game" for more that a couple of years or three, and often a lot less than that... many get started with great promises and fold within a year.

This always leaves me asking myself the same old question: Is it even worth the effort to try to contribute to third party sites that "pretend" to offer compensation? Or are we actually better off just contributing minimally to curated sites that are a good match for our content... and not worrying about "the money;" instead focusing on those sites being like beacons of "promotional vehicles" for the bulk of our content, which we keep on our own sites, that we control and manage?

Either way, "getting something" for your writing on the web seems like an extreme long-term proposition. The only web site/blog combo I own that generates reliable traffic does so because I have been posting to it consistently since 2002 and it has gradually developed a following... and that's a really long time to way for a paycheck. And even so, it's just a few dollars. Is it "worth" it?

In the end, I suppose I have to confess that even having $20 is better than "not having $20," and that's why I still contribute... even though I also have to confess that these words-- and my many others-- have nothing to do with money, and everything to do with a love for writing.

In the meantime, I need to go move some content from yet another defunct site...