Writing for t2P

This is the way that blogs and e-zines and electronic papers like the Huffington Post, the Daily KOS, and others view professional writers on the internet.

We’re schmucks with Underwoods, as the old Hollywood saying goes. A dime a dozen.

You work for free. You work to get seen. When the site you’re helping power up does really well, the folks who created it walk off with a multi-million dollar payday and their legions of contributors who got them there don’t get a plug nickel.

Truth-2-Power.com is different.

We’re a cooperative.  You own your own rights, as you do at the other sites. Here, though, you also get a piece of the action.

We all know that there is little or no money in advertising for web publications until you get millions of daily hits. It takes time to build up to that level, and good word-of-mouth, and some dumb luck. There is nothing more of a “sure thing” than writing gratis for HuffPo or KOS or another publication, except for the credits.

Every writer contributing to t2P gets one equity share in the t2P website for every submission accepted for publication on t2P. Bonus shares are awarded for delivering high traffic (10K,25K,100K readers on a story).  Editors get bonus shares for their work. Moderators get fractional shares for the work that they put in. And so on.

As t2P grows, whatever revenue that is available first goes to cover operations and growth of operations, costs of which tend to be fairly small.

Beyond that, whatever remains is profit, will be divided amongst the shareholders quarterly.*

When we land a title sponsor, for example, our shareholders will participate in that revenue stream. If an AOL comes along and offers a big payday to buy out the publication, all of the shareholders who helped get the publication there will participate in that as well.**

The likelihood is that we will not see meaningful revenue for some time, and there is no guarantee that, even with a lot of hard work, the cosmic tumblers will reward our publication with revenue.  The plan, though exists so that, as we grow, the writers can benefit along with the publishers.

Of course talk is cheap.

Who is back-stopping this deal?

TheRossGroupFT LLC, formerly MLN Sports Group LLC, published the first digital sports magazine, MLN Sports Zone (MinorLeagueNews.com). It was one of the first ezines published, along with Slate, on the Internet in 2000.  We have been pioneering publishers on the web, for over a decade. We have rolled through hundreds of changes in the industry and continue to develop engaging, forward-thinking publishing concepts to provide platforms for great writing, and to provide professional writers means to compensate themselves working in new media.

Brian Ross is a member of the American Society of Professional Journalists, the Minor League Baseball Writers Association, and he has been a member of the Society of American Baseball Researchers (SABR) and  the American Society of Magazine Editors.***

An All-for-One-One-For-All deal:

We share in the risk.  Unlike our competitors, we share in the financial rewards for creating excellence.

TheRossGroupFT is assumes the promotional, editorial, and operational costs including advertising, and employing graphic artists to enhance stories. We may, down road, potentially pay for services like a newswire. This is how we earn our share.

Standards

We expect exceptional work. We will expect excellence from all who contribute. We will not publish mediocre, poorly spelled, poorly thought-out, disorganized, or poorly flowing submissions.

You may blog frequently, but we prefer that you blog with us at a minimum weekly.  We want you to develop a following, and consistency of voice and message are important to that effort.

We may not elect to publish a submission. We will do our best to review all work in 24 hours or less.  If we pass, you can blog it on WordPress or on another blog of your choice.   If we accept it,

Our mission is simple:  Produce the best political and social op-eds in the world.  We will be the resource that thinking people go to for outside of the box, outside of the Beltway op-ed.

No f*bombs, because they limit search engines, but we want you to think different. We want you to speak your mind.

Advantages to Blogging on Your Own

You can, of course, develop your own blog somewhere else, or on our host system, WordPress. The advantages, though, to publishing some of your stories with us are:

• Exposure – Increase your exposure featured on a platform with other new voices in political and social commentary;
• Marketing – We advertise, but more importantly we connect you into our network of notices to poltically-interested groups and people via our email newsletter monthly.
• Standing – Our writers are screened and then held to a higher standard. We expect exceptional writing along with innovative thinking.
• Participation – Independently, your site may do well, it may get lost in the traffic on the web. Collectively, we can achieve higher revenue and also publish periodic works resold as books and e-books. In all things in the cooperative, you participate fractionally as a stakeholder.

We welcome you to apply.

Send your URL of your blog, a short  (1 par. max) statement of purpose in your blogging, a link to clips, or a small 3-5 article clip file to info@therossgroupft.com

Sincerely,

Managing Editor
Truth-2-Power.com

____________________

*If revenue share of a writer amounts to less than $1.00, then revenue is withheld until the writer reaches at least that cash value in their shareholder account.

**The RossGroupFT LLC holds a controlling share of the stock in the enterprise at all times, which will begin higher because of the low number of writers in the pool , but will ultimately be limited to 33% of the truth-2-power.com website.

*** Status lapsed with closing of SZ in 2010. We expect to reapply for membership soon with this new publication.