This week I was all set to check out GhostBloggers, which was recommended by a forum friend of mine as a place they made some decent money at back in 2013. It's a primarily "on spec" site for writers (like Constant Content), but with a specific focus on blog posts that you sell the full rights to. Though writers can set their own prices, GhostBloggers pitches their "standard" price at $3.50 per 100 words, or $35 per 1000 words. That's lower-end for the general writing industry, but it's toward the higher end for content mills, and not bad for spec pieces that don't take you more than an hour or two in total.
Before signing up, however, I did my customary search for reviews and public comments on the company. The results were ... well, they convinced me not to bother creating an account there.
As best I can gather, GhostBloggers was legit until some point in 2015. At that point, either the original owner sold to someone else on the DL, or developed some sort of serious brain damage. Whatever the case, whoever is currently running the place appears to have a serial streak of ripping off writers, failing to make Paypal payments that have already been approved by the article buyers and that appear to have been cashed out successfully through the site's interface.
I base this on public commentary from the following links:
Virtual Assistant Assistant -- The review is supportive of the service, but was posted on June 2014. There's a whole pile of more recent comments from writers complaining of being stiffed at the bottom of the article.
Lancer Life -- A negative review from mid-2015 with some added negative comments about failure to pay.
Reddit -- Small thread with a couple of people discussing payment issues.
Reynard City -- Personal testimonial from an author who was stiffed for $600 in early 2016.
This body of evidence was enough to convince me to stay away. Have you had any experience with GhostBloggers.net (either positive or negative)? Please leave a comment here if you have to help out other writers -- thanks!
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