“We’d love to have you write for us. We can’t pay you, but it’d be great exposure for your work!”

If you’ve tried to write for someone else online, you’ve probably heard that offer. It may be worth it, it may not be. It all depends. I’ve done it many times while building Now I Know, and it definitely helped. (And if the opportunity were right, the below notwithstanding, I’d do it again.) But your experience may differ.

Now that I’ve gotten a lot of “great exposure,” though, I’m making an offer to potential publishers.

I’ve love to write for you. You have to pay me, but it’d be great exposure for your publication!

Here’s how it works.

1) You tell me you want to write for you.

2) I come up with some potential topics. You pick one.

3) We figure out how much you’re going to pay me.

4) I write. You publish. I promote my work.

Pretty simple.

I’m pretty good at driving traffic to what I write. My email newsletter has 85,000 or so subscribers, so I can plug it there if appropriate — and, because I’m the one writing whatever we collectively come up with, it probably is. And even outside of that, I’m pretty good at getting attention for the things I work on.

Proof? Google “dan lewis google reader petition” for example. I didn’t promote that on the newsletter, but it received 150,000 signatures and all that press. I wrote about how I found out about an island nation that ran out of bird poop: 2,700 pageviews. I explained why I think the backlash to Zach Braff and Amanda Palmer’s Kickstarters is no big deal: 14,000 pageviews, and Palmer herself read it. And I taught my 5 year old about square roots: 40,000 pageviews. I can bring exposure.

So, let’s reverse the offer. I write — that part stays the same — but you pay for exposure. Interested? Shoot me an email. dan.lewis at gmail.

Originally published on May 22, 2013