Please send reader.pitches@buzzfeed.com an email with a concise note explaining the core of your idea, how you support it, and why it`s important – or, even better (especially for personal essays), send a complete first draft of your article. Please attach drafts as Word or Google Docs files instead of pasting the text into the body of the email. At the end of the day, we want you to say something we`ve never heard before and make sure your piece has clear stakes. Consider: What would happen if you told this story? What would happen if this story wasn`t told? And why are you the only writer specially equipped to tell the story? Links to your previous work that is similar or relevant are also helpful. Present your reader.pitches@buzzfeed.com idea. If you`re submitting a personal essay, they suggest sending your first draft instead of a pitch. If they are interested, they will get back to you within two weeks. Whatever you write, it should be something that is important to people right now, or something that will be important to them forever, or both. If there is no obvious news, make sure it`s clear why your idea is important right now. Your article should both take into account the conversation that is already taking place around the topic and move it forward in a meaningful way. We are committed to helping freelance writers succeed. We`ll send you reviews from independent writing firms, assignments, and articles to build your writing career. You can view our privacy policy here and our disclaimer.

To get started, simply enter your email address in the form on this page. This is not the typical «clickbait» buzzFeed. They focus on long articles with thoughtful premise and high-quality writing. Not that they don`t have an element of that catchy style that BuzzFeed is known for – but it`s weakened. What`s next? The issue of sustainability is important to BuzzFeed. The «summer» part of the challenge name implies that BuzzFeed doesn`t intend to pay long for the content. This could work for social platforms – once developers have built a following and users have developed habits, it`s easier to keep them close. But BuzzFeed will need more incentive for users to continue writing community articles once payments are complete. There are two ways the platform could go: We don`t have as many personal essays as before, but we`re still interested in it. For personal essays, we look for writing with a strong voice that not only describes your own experiences, but relies on them to create something profoundly valuable and compelling for readers. There is more than one way to do it. It can be writing about something other people haven`t experienced and will be intrigued to understand better, or a discussion about something hard or taboo that isn`t talked about enough, or an aspect of your own life that highlights current news.

Whatever this experience is, it should give readers a glimpse into an ongoing and relevant cultural conversation. Of course, it`s also the same playbook that all social media platforms have created and benefited from, most recently TikTok with its «Creator Fund»: Ask your platform`s content creators to focus on creating viral videos or articles or anything else for free to get enough attention to get paid, then simply surf their viral wave as an online host and harvest the following. Rewards. BuzzFeed knows what it`s doing, and it`s working: so far, Variety, Fast Company, and Yahoo! Finance (cross-posting by Variety) have boosted the competition, all reports without critical analysis. BuzzFeed beckons in front of its $10,000 community of unpaid writers, how much fun! They say they pay competitive prices. Reports suggest that BuzzFeed pays an average of $0.25 per word, but that varies. Personal essays can cover almost any subject; Some to think about are money, family, food, religion, sexuality, relationships, disability, illness (mental or physical), hormones, race, body image, drugs, travel. The bottom line is that you should know why you are writing about what you are writing. What have you learned from your experiences? What should we learn? What does this shed light on people and the world we live in? Not all personal trials need to have an appropriate purpose. And writing doesn`t have to be sad to be profound; funny it`s awesome! But the piece should crystallize a clear main idea that looks really fresh and meaningful.

To my knowledge, I`ve never received a BuzzFeed email like this. I used the Google account where I received the email to sign in to BuzzFeed and see if I had a community account. It turns out I created one on July 2, 2015, but there`s nothing on it except my Facebook profile picture at the time and a link to my Facebook account. It doesn`t even have a proper username. And I didn`t have any email settings to get such a contest ad. Which is strange to say the least. But targeting this contest at free account holders isn`t BuzzFeed`s biggest offense. And the more viral contributors` articles, the more they get paid. But the pageview thresholds they need to reach are pretty high, so it`s not clear how many people will actually be able to benefit from the new BuzzFeed program. The news: BuzzFeed yesterday launched a creator payment program called the Summer Writers` Challenge, which offers up to $10,000 for community items that go viral. The program will be extended until August 15.

BuzzFeed READER takes personal essays on almost every topic (family, food, religion, sex, disability, hormones, body image, drugs, travel, race, etc.) and current cultural criticism. If your article doesn`t fit into one of these categories, they can still adopt it – see examples of what they`ve adopted for the submitted item. How it works: Instead of paying a flat fee per article, BuzzFeed pays creators based on page views, with compensation ranging from $150 for an article with 150,000 views to $10,000 for articles that receive more than $4 million. Data and page views have been the cornerstone of BuzzFeed`s business model for years, and the company is adept at outsourcing content, allowing users to create quizzes and listicles to publish in its user-written hub, the BuzzFeed community. (The community doesn`t receive editorial oversight from BuzzFeed, but publishers decide what content is promoted on buzzFeed`s homepage.) There are rewards for high-performing contributions in the form of «internet points» and «trophies», but there has been no financial compensation so far. I`ve just started introducing SELF editors, and I`m excited. The one-week turnaround time and the good salary encourage me, and I love the work they produce. I tried the Moisturizing Hack Drugstore, which is all over Instagram, and my skin is completely radiant Stay up to date with the latest daily buzz with the BuzzFeed Daily newsletter! Yes! If you`re a writer interested in submitting or presenting, here`s what we`re interested in: The Summer Writers` Challenge seems to be partly an example of BuzzFeed familiar with managing its content costs and ensuring a return on investment. Payment levels were calculated «based on our previous community traffic,» Wang said. BuzzFeed declined to share the average traffic a community post brings because it «fluctuates a lot» depending on the type of post, schedule and promotion, a spokesperson said.

«We think [the challenge] is a test that is worth funding for two months,» Wang said.