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15 years ago, the public paid for media. Media, in turn, paid writers. And advertisers advertised. Now, advertisers spend money on cool videos, the public expects to read for free online, craigslist killed classified revenue, and most websites can’t afford to pay editors or writers because readers don’t pay to read and advertisers don’t advertise and classifieds don’t exist and…

This is serious stuff because it reduces quality original information for you and me.

Journalism is meant to serve as the fourth estate—the watch dog of government, and our corporations. A check on power and a beacon of honesty and transparency on behalf of we, the people.

As a lifelong writer, I believe in paying writers for quality work—and my “paygate,” innovate means of refueling journalism in a new media context—enables passionate elephant subscribers to make it possible. Despite the fact that we make very little off of ads—about 1/50th other sites our size—I voluntarily pay the equivalent of several staff salaries a month to writers who are consistent, quality and popular.

Our system, detailed below, is intended to:

1) establish clear goals for you writers every month and
2) create a cooperative, team-effort system that encourages writers to support one another through commenting, sharing & sharing tips.

Elephant Journal’s Writer Payment Plan:

Our incentives will reward writers who are

1) popular,
2) consistent
3) and quality

and not just one of the three.

Secondly, we pay team players: there’s direct financial incentive to support one another with advice, likes, tweets, comments and shares.

We measure total elephant readership numbers (we’ve plateaued at approx 18.8 million sessions/month) through Google Analytics, not individual numbers through WordPress (WP numbers can be fuzzy) to ensure that our incentive payment system rewards both group effort and individual achievement. Writers are directly incentivized to support one another with comments, shares, tweets and likes, shares to reddit, stumbleupon.

Payment Rules:

> The most popular among you qualify for the most popular writers bonus below:

Most Popular Writers.

Our 15 top writers get paid a bonus (see below). I’ll be able to pay 20 top writers, and up, as elephant makes more money.

To qualify for one of our 15 monthly bonuses, fulfill three criteria:

1) consistency: six quality blogs, or more, published in the month—note: do not wait to send in blogs toward the end of the month as we may not get them up in time and they won’t count. Turnaround is a week, often.

2) quality: not only do you blog consistently, but they are of sufficient quality and merit that we accept them and share them up. If they are quality, your community on your FB, Pinterest, Instagram etc will respond and support with likes, reads, shares.

3) popularity: reaching beyond the choir to all those who don’t yet know they give a care about “the mindful life” is a part of our mission.

I’ll pay the top 15 most popular folks who submit view counts by noon MST on the last day of the month—if you submit your view count even one hour late, no payment. No excuses, no exceptions. I promise.

> If our team of writers helps elephant grow as a site,
elephant’s #1 writer for the month wins $2,500!
#2 wins $1,250!
#3 wins $750!
#4 and #5 receive $300 each,
#6 and #7 win $150 each,
and #8 – #15 earn $108 each.

> If elephant doesn’t grow as a whole (the team player incentive),
Everyone gets the above, except the bottom tier who would have been paid $108 gets a free year-long gift subscription to elephant journal to give away instead.

If you think you may qualify for a payment or bonus this month, you must submit your total WordPress view count (with links to the articles) for that month (as in the past) by noon of the last day of said month. Be on time or early: no exceptions.

PS: no exceptions.

May’s Winners:

 Alex Sandra Myles: 26 articles; 836,598 views for $2,000

 Kate Rose: 32 articles; 562,532 views for $1,000

 Khara-Jade Warren: 6 articles; 220,895 views for $1,000

 Christine “Cissy” White: 16 articles; 119,575 views for $500

 Sarah Harvey: 12 articles; 117,010 views for $500

 Garrick Transell: 7 articles; 112,173 views for $250

 Toby Israel: 15 articles; 97,504 views for $250

 

For a grand total of $5,500! Plus a bunch of gift subscriptions…and most of all appreciation for all those working together with our hard-working editors and social media-ers to share the mindful life beyond the choir!

Gift Subscription Winners!

Keeley Milne: 17 articles; 70,888 views for a free gift subscription!
Hilda Carroll: 13 articles; 64,053 views for a free gift subscription!
Monika Carless: 21 articles; 50,938 views for a free gift subscription!
Carmelene Siani: 25 articles; 48,681 views for a free gift subscription!
Kimberly Lo: 16 articles; 39,950 views for a free gift subscription!
Ruth Lera: 8 articles; 12,834 views for a free gift subscription!
Victoria Fedden: 6 articles; 8,878 views for a free gift subscription!
Yoli Ramazzina: 7 articles; 6,822 views for a free gift subscription!
Kathryn Muyskens: 6 articles; 3,326 views for a free gift subscription!