Something occurred to me today: I have no idea where most of my writing ends up. Not a clue. Of the tens - perhaps even hundreds - of thousands of words of original content I've written I could only point you to a few pieces. The rest, it seems, have been lost to article sites and the inner pages of commercial sites without attribution. Is this the same for many of the writers here? Do you ask your clients for the URL where you can find your work? Do you even care? I've never really considered it until today, but there are a few pieces of work that I'd have liked to show off to my family and friends (if only to force them to accept that what I do counts as a real job). They're still on my hard drive, but it isn't the same
Keith, I hear what you're saying. Many articles I've written have ended up thrown in the cyberspace abyss. Occasionally, I'll google an old article I wrote to see what turns up and I've lucked out a few times that way. However, these days I prefer to find out where my work goes and specifically what it will be used for. If a new client refuses to tell me, I don't normally take the job. I like to be able to prove to certain members of my family that what I do constitutes "real" work, as well.
I don't really care where mine goes to be honest. As long as I get paid for the work, I'm happy. I know some people take it much more seriously, but I don't. I love writing, and I make a pretty decent living from it, but my clients aren't looking to promote me with what I write, so when I hand off the finished product I just move on to the next job. I write WAY too much to be curious about where it's all going. It would be a logistical nightmare to try and figure it all out. My two and a half cents.
I hear ya, zman. There are some jobs that I'm just happy to get off my desk Denise, I can't imagine I'd ever turn down a job if the client wouldn't tell me how it would be used. I'm proud of my work but I really don't care what it's used for - after all, I can't imagine my articles on student loans and the latest Hollywood blockbusters will be used to promote anything illegal or dodgy
I try to keep track of the work, but for the most part, I do not mind if they do not want to devulge the links. I keep microsoft word documents for download if future clients want to see my work.
Keith, Perhaps I should clarify. If the refusal to tell me how the articles are going to be used seems the least bit sketchy, I won't take the job. Otherwise, I'm perfectly happy as long as I get paid fairly for my work.
I'd especially worry about that in cases where I have researched like mad for the article. I do like to see my work ( babies) taken nice care of in sites
There is a fact I found regarding my work. Most of the times content is altered, whether after passing editorial review/rewriting, or by clients wanting to keep it unrelated to you for any given reason
Yea, I've seen this happen as well. horrible, but as long as you have the article on file, and can present it to potential clients, thats all that should matter.
I only keep track of byline work. For purely ghostwritten work where no royalties are involved, I don't care.