To clarify, it wasn’t any of the companies you see in this picture.
This week I received an email (I’m sure many of my colleagues received it too) from a large, well-known condom company offering me the “opportunity” to “collaborate” with them (you’ll understand all the quotation marks in a minute). I thought “Collaboration? That sounds fun! Do they want my input on a new kind of condom? Maybe they’re looking to bring in sex educators to help spread the safer sex word! Collaboration could mean so many fun things!”
Except it didn’t.
Here’s what “collaboration” meant:
“Hello JoEllen,
I am working with [REDACTED] to help promote their products and connect with online resources and blogs. I came across your blog and think that you would be perfect for this blogger collaboration project!
[REDACTED] will provide you with 2 gift bags of [REDACTED] products (1 for you to keep and 1 to giveaway to one of your readers).
Guidelines:
1.Create a blog post talking about the sex positions you want to try
2.Share the “Sex Positions to Try” page (they included a helpful link!)
3.Host a giveaway on your blog and select a winner to receive the gift bag of [REDACTED] products
4.Share your blog post on your social media channels
5.Incorporate a rel=”nofollow” tag (you know, so Google won’t think they’re spamming while they, well, spam) when you share on your blog. If you need help doing this please let us know and we can give you step by step instructions.
Please let me know if you are interested in participating and if you have any questions.”
Did you catch it? Did you? The part where a large, successful world-wide condom company offered to pay me for a not-small amount of work with CONDOMS. The part where they offered to pay for exposure to the entire network of followers that I have painstakingly built over the last 3 years with CONDOMS. The part where they indicated that my time, my work, my business and my name are worth CONDOMS.
Yeah, so that happened.
I was going to let it go. Just ignore the email and let it go. Then my amazing friend Elle Chase mentioned that she was writing back to them and we got to talking about it, about how this undervaluing of our time, our work and our names would keep happening if we didn’t call companies on it. I realized she was right. There are so many people out there who think it’s appropriate to ask us to work for nothing, to dangle “exposure” like this carrot on a stick that’s supposed to keep us generating free PR (or labor or whatever they need) for them forever. The whole thing propagates the notion that what we do doesn’t have value, that we don’t have “real jobs”, that we should expect to scrape by while putting in the 18 hour days because that’s what passion and an unconventional career should look like. (check out what Elle Chase aka Lady Cheeky has to say about all this in her piece Will (Not) Work For Condoms)
I got a bit riled up.
Elle had formulated her response to condom-company-who-should-have-known-better and we talked about just sending identical responses so as to send the message “we’re pissed AND we’re in cahoots” but I was too worked up for that so I ended up with a version that I keep referring to as “rant-y and self-important”
Here it is:
“Hi [REDACTED]
To be clear the offer on the table is that I:
1) Write a blog post about “sex positions to try,” which would include a link to a similar post on [REDACTED]’s site, driving traffic to your site.
2) Create a contest promoting [REDACTED] to my multitude of readers by providing a [REDACTED] product gift bag as the prize
3) Promote this contest for [REDACTED] products through my social media sites – Promoting [REDACTED] all over my social media the whole time
and
4) Include a ‘nofollow’ tag in any related html so that it doesn’t look like spam, even though I’m spamming my readers on your behalf
For all this work, I wouldn’t get paid, but instead [REDACTED] would give me a gift bag of their condoms and lube?
This is not collaboration, this is exploitation.
Do you imagine that aligning myself with the [REDACTED] name is such a fantastic opportunity for me, an established voice in the sex writing community, that I’m willing to invest hours of free labor in it? I wouldn’t do this for a company I actually have a relationship with let alone one that seems to have no idea who I am or what I do. If you had done your research, you would see that I am a professional sex educator and paid writer. I speak nationally, I’m in the middle of writing a book. I get paid for my time, just like you get paid for writing and sending these emails to sex bloggers. I don’t work for condoms. No one should work for condoms. Would you work for condoms?
You aren’t fooling anyone here so stop insulting us by trying to pass this off as “collaborating” with bloggers “on behalf of [REDACTED]” and instead, come up with a cross-promotional idea that benefits BOTH parties involved rather than just recruiting people who you clearly don’t value at all to give you free PR.
Thank you for your time
JoEllen Notte”
Here’s the thing, somewhere along the line companies got the idea that this was acceptable. Somewhere along the line the message got sent that our time, our work, our sites, our names don’t have value and as long as there are some people taking the bait on this type of “collaboration” it’s going to keep going on. We need to value ourselves, our time and our work. Even if you are just starting out and this seems like a great way to get new followers, think about what accepting this offer does – it tells this company that you are at their disposal, that you will work for condoms. It continues the cycle of these insulting “proposals” going out to writers and it reinforces the idea that it’s okay to not pay us. You’re not only screwing other writers, you’re, in the long-run, screwing yourself.
So, I’m putting the call out: don’t accept these offers and what’s more, tell these companies why they are wrong. The next time a clueless company approaches you with an “exciting opportunity” to work for free as their PR machine remember, our work is valuable, what we do matters and we deserve to be paid and remind them of that too.
You make me so happy, I lack words. <3
I received this offer also. I replied by offering to send my advertising rates.
I’ve done that in the past, usually when they ask me to do a post or a link but this whole “mount an elaborate campaign on our behalf in exchange for nothing” thing felt like it warranted more. Especially as there are probably brand new bloggers who will see the “opportunity” to be exposed the the company’s social network (and build their followings) as worthwhile and engage in this without thinking of the ramifications.
Preventing other, newer, bloggers from also getting hosed is most of the reason for my similar ranty posts. 🙂
Totally agreed. That said, it’s not just sex companies- as a writer of a lot of different things, the expectation that I’ll write for exposure is a huge problem. Setting the expectation that writing is a job, and one where not only do we deserve to be paid, but paid a reasonable amount (not $25 or $50 a piece, either, tbh) is hugely important.
This is similar to artists, photographers, and DJs and other such people being asked to work for free, because they will get their-name-out-there advertisement.
Wrong all the way around.
Absolutely! My partner and I often comment on the parallels between my work and his as a performer. Everyone deserves better.
I received this email not once but twice. I replied to the first person that I would consider just a giveaway plus my normal sponsored posts rates because those products wouldn’t interest me or be of the same value as rates, but they told me they didn’t have money in their marketing campaign. I forgot about it until I got the second email today, the same as yours. It asks for MORE work. Ha.
I got 3 emails, all from the same person, bugging me for a response. I hate the multiple emails almost as much as the inane offer.
The whole “we don’t have the money” thing baffles me. Also, here’s the thing: when you don’t have the money, you can’t afford us- it’s that simple.
I totally agree with all of these points, and responded with a similar letter to this particular campaign. I do think it is essential that we continue to support one another as sex educators with podcast interviews, articles and other promotion for new books and projects – we can lift one another up while charging fair promotional rates to the big toy and condom companies.
Completely agree with this! It’s so fabulous to be able to support, collaborate, and build each other up. After all, we’re all in this blogging thing together and supporting similar sex-positive messages!
Yes, exactly! I didn’t get that particular offer. Clearly, I’m still small potatoes, lol, but I have been told that writing for a site with 12 million monthly views *just* for the exposure should be of interest to me…because, well, 12 million people. I replied, sort of politely, that with 12 million monthly views, they should be willing AND able to pay me for my time and effort. Le sigh.
I also saw writers accepting $0.95 to write product descriptions for an adult toy company through a content mill I work with. Between the free exposure and the pennies some people will accept, it’s little wonder some companies think we should all jump on these offers. Well, not this chick. I agree with you. We have to be willing to remind people that we don’t work for free and that what we do is valuable. If it wasn’t valuable, these companies wouldn’t be looking for our help in the first place.
We also received this email twice! Replied with our rates. We even offered to do it for FREE for cross-promotion to their networks, possibly a fair-ish trade. But they said can’t cross-promote due to budgetary restraints… when cross-promotion is essentially free. Epic fail. We definitely agree – we don’t and won’t work for condoms!
can’t cross-promote due to budgetary restraints
WHAT.
My thoughts exactly! Cue the jaw drop.
So, I’m officially feeling like a total loser because I just responded with my advertising rates as well. However, that tells you just how little getting an “offer” like this rattled me because it’s SO GODDAMN COMMON NOW. Oh, you want something substantial and will give me nothing in return? Welcome to another day in my inbox.
You are my hero.
Here’s the thing (and I’m so sorry you’re getting this rant Piph) people keep being like “Oh, I get these all the time, it’s just so common to me, because I’m soooo experienced, this must have rattled you because you’re such a n00b!!”
No. I get this shit every damn day. Yesterday was the day that Elle and I said “Enough!” and instead of sending my rates (which they will ignore like they always do) and waiting to see 5 brand new bloggers promoting the super-exciting Durex giveaway we did something. It’s not that we’re new to this or that we have so much more time on our hands than everyone else (although, right now my life is like a commercial for couches and painkillers) it’s that we decided to do something different. To step up. To make a big effing scene because the fact that this goes on is bullshit. The fact that someone “paid” me to teach a class with a table at a meet & greet (I don’t sell product and am a raging introvert- it was basically hell) is bullshit, the fact that people thing “exposure” is currency is bullshit.
This conversation needs to be happening.
EXPOSURE IS NOT CURRENCY should be our new battle cry.
Because I’m the worst now all I can think is “exposure isn’t currency, put your dick away”
This, a thousand times over:
This. So much this. ^
The shit side is that even with all our hard work, years
of building a career in the field (one that can sustain us), respectable social media presence, and doing our damnedest to maintain a level of professionalism, it’s hard to get a company to see why they should pay, when for every 1 of us (those that know our worth and won’t take less than we deserve) there are another 15 who will do it for free for ‘exposure’, it IS their currency… *said companies* think it applies across the board. And it doesn’t.
If I had a dollar for every time I wanted to yell “F*CK YOU, PAY ME!”. *shakes fist in the air*
Somewhere in here someone said something about keeping inexperienced bloggers from “getting hosed” by companies and I thought as much as that, it’s about keeping inexperienced people from doing things that make companies think it’s ok to ask for them. As much as I’m here to work for better conditions for everyone sometimes I want to get up and say “When you do that it makes it harder for ME to get paid!”. There’s totally a self-serving element to it.
Agreed.
Although it’s not the same thing, I think it’s comparable to when *company x* drops prices on a product to take sales away from *company y*. If *company y* wants to stay in the game they have to match or drop the prices *company x* tossed out to the market. Eventually this creates a situation where the actual product has no real value anymore; every time a blogger willingly takes one of these “for exposure” deals it devalues what the majority – of those who’ve been in the scene longer than 6 months – have worked so hard to create.
And the kicker, most of the people who get in the game don’t last long because they can’t make a living at it, not even realizing it was accepting all the free sh*t that put them (and all of us) in that situation to begin with. Jamie calls them “Tourists”.
I’ve been working on a post about this for a long time (as part of my “Becoming A Reviewer” series). Life just got in the way of finishing it. I think this whole situation you’re all going through helped reignite the angry fire I’ve been trying to douse.
I’m so going to start using “tourists”. I was just explaining to my partner the concept of the people who show up with a brand-new site and are everywhere for like 3 months and then they completely disappear.
Want to hear something really funny? I still think of myself as “new” to all of this. My site will be three years old in July.
Yup. Tourists everywhere. *sighs*
I’m taking the anger, disappointment, and slight resentment you’re feeling (which is an assumption, since I’m not you and don’t know exactly what you’re feeling), as a sign of how ‘not new’ you are. For me, with experience and growth comes some expectancy… as in, I’ve spent x amount of years proving my value, and now that there *is* value to what I do, I EXPECT TO GET PAID.
You’ve paid your dues. You deserve to be paid. Period. There are no if, and, or buts.
My site will be two in April, I still describe myself to companies as a ‘new’ blogger. And I don’t write for free.
LMAO!! I love what you all are replying with!!! OOXX
omg when i get an “offer” like for free product in exchange for my reviews, if it’s not somethingi really fancy, i just tell them this: “I spend on average 20 hours per product review, some slightly less or slightly more, and at minimum wage the last time it was raised in 2009 that’s me losing $7.25 per hour x 20= $145.00 just to review your product. even if your product retails over $145.00, I’m eating all the loss and getting nothing in return but another product that I have to rehome or store in my tiny apartment in the “sex toy room” which is preciou$$ real estate. I know that minimum wage should be closer to $15.00 per hour in the USA ( McDonald’s and Walmart employees are on strike for this at this very moment) and my work is worth way more than min wage, so really I’m losing more like $200.00 per free product review that I generously do. Those days are quickly coming to an end because I also have a book/screenplay/movie in the works and I’m producing a documentary on toxic sex toy materials that is in final stages of editing. So thanks but maybe you should send your product to a hobby reviewer who doesn’t do this as a career and will be thrilled with just free product as payment. “
Last year, I contacted a musician that I admired (small, local, indie label) and asked them about doing a concert. We mashed out some details and then I asked “So, would 50% down be good to book it? What’s your going rate?” and they were SO surprised that I was offering to pay them AT ALL that I felt like hitting someone on their behalf…
I didn’t receive this offer but I receive similar all the time. Now I just write back and say something like, “I’m excited to work with you! Sounds like you’re interested in one of my sponsored post options. Here are some more details on my rates” Depending on the company, they’ll sometimes turn around into legit paid ops.
You clearly missed when I ranted about this yesterday. It’s not that Elle and I are unversed in dealing with solicitors and don’t know about these strategies, it’s that “offers” like this exist. This is a legitimate problem and the fact that so many of us are responding with “oh well, that’s what happens!” is a problem. Yes, I get people to pay me for stuff, often. But the fact that freaking DUREX who has more money than god wrote to me and acted like I would be thrilled to do, oh, let’s say (very conservatively) 10 hours of work for a goodie bag is insulting enough that it deserves more than me tacking a smile on my face and sending them my rates.
This is a conversation we need to be having.
Yes, totally missed you and Elle ranting about this yesterday. Looking back at my comment I realize that I probably didn’t phrase things properly. I do understand what you’re saying and I really respect that you’re taking a stand against companies like Durex with their sketchy, work for free “offers.” I also think you & Elle are both superstars and definitely well versed in handling these things 🙂
I DO think it’s a conversation that we need to be having. I guess I just feel tired of constantly having to remind companies that bloggers shouldn’t be expected to work for free. It’s a conversation that I’ve been having for 6+ years now. So, at this point I’m just like, “want me to work for free? I’m going to respond to you exactly the same way I would a paying client.” I know the “smile and here are my rates” approach probably seems passive, but for me it’s the most time effective way of dealing with these kinds of inquiries at this point.
With that said, I think your reply to them rocks and I think it’s awesome that you’re continuing to initiate the conversation on behalf of some of us that might feel too burn-out to do so. xo
I was just talking to someone about this and I said “I keep yelling at people I really like who I suspect don’t actually mean anything insulting at all because I want the point to remain clear. Sometimes being online sucks.”
Haha, it’s totally OK. I really like you too, so I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t think I was devaluing what you were saying & your work. I’m sure my initial comment would have come off totally different in person. In my head I was saying “here are my rates!” in my super sarcastic, fake valley girl voice which doesn’t always translate on the internet 😉
So, at this point I’m just like, “want me to work for free? I’m going to respond to you exactly the same way I would a paying client.”
My favorite time to do this is when someone asks me to give them private feedback on their sex toy, sex toy idea, or sex toy company idea. Because bitch plz my time and expertise are not free.
“I have created a sex themed board game…”
Seriously, at least once a month.
OMG I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR A FREE SEX BOARD GAME
The boardgame people are always like “can you just take a minute to go over our 50 page rulebook and look at the plans for our board and tell us if these ideas for pieces look okay?”
One time (before I learned) I actually took the time to look at one of these things and then they wanted to email back-and-forth with further questions and more input for weeks on end. I finally just ignored them. #ThatsWhatPeopleHireMeFor
I made this mistake too! Sounds like the same company. I realized it was a
Ugh. I’m sorry that you’re going through this. I know just how shitty it really is. I stopped working with *said company* for this very reason. When they first contacted me (years ago) it wasn’t hard to get them to understand that work was something that needed to be paid for. Now requests for remuneration with *said company* fall on deaf ears. I’ve been doing this for over 8 years, I’m beyond over the ‘collaboration’ for ‘exposure’ bullshit.
We are all professionals, and professionals deserve to be paid.
I received a similar offer from a book company last year…one that publishes MANY popular books for our field…that didn’t even make an attempt to create the illusion that I would benefit from it at all. AND BOOKS ARE TIME CONSUMING! I was broken-hearted.
I know of what you speak and I feel similarly. It makes me sad but they write so frequently about the book stuff and, you’re right, there is no benefit to the site and, sad as it sounds, finding the time to actually get through all of the books (or, let’s be honest, one of the books) is an issue.
Can you name the company please? I see no reason to protect them.
I’m trying to join discussion. Am I being blocked just for asking why you didn’t include name of company?
Hey charmer,
You weren’t being “blocked”. I was asleep. Your first comment came in at 12:30am and believe it or not I don’t keep a 24 hour vigil just waiting for comments so everyone can feel immediately included. Much like how I deserve to be paid, I also deserve to rest.
As to your question. No. I’m not going to answer you. I don’t care if you “see no reason” for why I didn’t name them- you don’t have to see the reason, I don’t answer to you… but I’ll explain anyway. I didn’t name the company not to protect them but because my piece isn’t about them, it’s about the concept of having our work valued and not being abused by a world (because this problem is everywhere) that doesn’t want to pay for our work. Now, if you really want to know the name of the company there are 2 super-simple ways to find out, neither of which involve accusing me of censoring you because I dared not immediately give you the information you wanted:
1. Click through to Elle’s piece. When I was writing mine and decided to removed the company name one of the reasons I felt so ok doing so is that Elle names them and gives lots of stats about them
2. Read through the rest of the comments. the name came up yesterday. I said it then because I wanted to- not because someone wrote in demanding I provide the information and then having a tantrum when it wasn’t immediately provided.
Now, an observation I can’t help but make: It’s funny to me that the one person in the comments who is behaving like a rude bully is also the one person without a picture attached to their account. It sure is easy to be rude and demanding when you’re anonymous, isn’t it?
‘Charmer’, I quite like that, in a weird way. But sure, you are not obliged to explain your reasons but thanks for talking me through it anyway. The reason I thought I was being blocked was because each time I asked the question, then returned to the conversation much later, my comment had not appeared, including the first one I wrote, a day earlier (which I can see is still in a ‘pending’ state). I also had to join Disqus in order to leave a comment, hence reason for no profile pic at the time as I didn’t want to go through the whole profile process at that point, updated now though. I’ve never been called a rude bully before in my life and from my perspective the repetition of my question was genuine as it didn’t seem to be getting through… i.e. with no response I had no idea whether it was reaching you or a monitor person or anyone else. Anyway, just wanted to join the conversation and looks like I’m not off on the best of starts! That’s life + technology I guess.
PS. I forgot to mention this – I have worked with this company before, but only their Canadian division (which, explains why I didn’t receive this offer.) In my experience, the Canadian division has been really great to work with because they do all of their blogger outreach through an independent PR firm in Toronto and they do pay bloggers for their work. It’s really unfortunate that this isn’t the case across the board because we all deserve to get paid for our work. Also, trying to manipulate bloggers = bad for their brand all around.
I got the same email, and responded with a quick “I don’t do free advertising posts if you want to purchase an ad we can talk…” response, but then went off on a rant about basically everything you talk about in this post to my partner.
For the most part I know better than to trade for publicity after blogging for a few years (especially with super insulting proposals like hours of work and free publicity for CONDOMS), but I admit every once in a while I get a not so obviously offensive proposal and momentarily consider if maybe it IS worth the publicity…especially because so many bloggers do stuff like this. And I’ve also done a few things that probably weren’t in my best interest in the past, thinking the exposure would be worth it.
So I am SO GLAD you took the initiative to write this post and go public with everything that is wrong with emails/proposals like this, and how working for free not only hurts individual bloggers, but bloggers and writers as a whole. This conversation is so important. Seriously, thank you.