Top Stories

Displaced journalists looking to make some money and keep up with their reporting and editing skills may find it tougher than usual these days to find freelance gigs.

At least some journalists, though, are finding pockets of profit elsewhere, realizing that the path to preserving their skills may not involve a news organization. One place they're turning to is Scribd.com, a site that invites journalists to publish their work, reach new audiences and potentially profit from stories that cash-strapped news organizations might not have the resources to publish.

Just last week, the two-year-old site, which offers documents in 90 different languages, began allowing writers to charge for their content and keep 80 percent of the revenue.

Cole Louison, a researcher for GQ Magazine who has freelanced for news organizations such as The New York Times, said he started posting his work on Scribd.com after hearing too many editors tell him there wasn't enough space for his stories.

Publishing content directly to the site lets him avoid the hassle of pitching stories and having to wait weeks, or months, for them to run. His work can also be protected on the site, as authors have the option of encoding their content with security software to prevent it from being freely copied or downloaded.

"There was a time when I had sort of stockpiled up some stories that I was really happy with and that I liked a lot but just could not find a place for," said Louison, who admits he's not the best when it comes to "selling" his stories to editors. "You have to navigate all of these channels and so often your idea doesn't make it."

Louison said he likes being able to bypass these channels by publishing his stories on Scribd, where he gets greater exposure than if he were to post his work on a personal blog. His piece about the 2009 inauguration has generated about 14,300 views and is the second hit that appears when Googling his name.

He hasn't yet published anything on the site since it began allowing contributors to charge for content, but said he's considering charging $1 for his upcoming work. People spend $1 for iPhone applications and iTunes songs, he pointed out. Why not spend $1 on stories?

The site could prove especially beneficial for investigative journalists who have been laid-off and are looking for new platforms to share their work, said Scott James (aka Kemble Scott), a longtime broadcast journalist and former news director who left journalism in 2003 to start writing novels.

"A lot of us who have worked in journalism are very distraught about where things are right now and so it's not so far off to imagine something like this because there's a way to monetize," said Scott. "What if there are investigative reporters who do magazine-length pieces and charge for direct access to their work? That could actually be a way to do some serious journalism that wouldn't otherwise get done."

Scott is following his own advice about monetizing content. He posted his latest novel, "The Sower," on the site and is charging $2 for the book, which people can read on Scribd.com, download and print. He said that hypothetically, if he were to publish it through a typical book publisher, it might sell for $15 and he might only get 7.5 percent of the cover price. "When you get 80 percent of the profit," he said, "you don't mind charging $2 for it."

Going through a traditional book publisher could have meant waiting until 2010 or 2011 to get his novel published. By that time, the novel's many references to current events might not be as relevant as they are now.

Scott represents a growing number of authors who are self-publishing their work. Bowker, a resource for publishing-related information, reported last week that print-on-demand companies published 285,394 new books last year, a 132 percent increase from 2007.

The risk in using sites such as Scribd, Scott said, is publishing something that hasn't been fact-checked or thoroughly edited. With self-publication the margin for error widens, as users uploading content often have to juggle the roles of reporter, editor and publisher.

"The great part of this is you don't need anyone's permission to publish," Scott said, "but at the same time you need to make sure you have a vetting and fact-checking system for yourself that works."

The self-publishing world isn't without editors. Bridget Kinsella, who got laid off last year from her job as an editor at Publishers Weekly, said a handful of people have recently contacted her, asking if she can edit their work before posting it to Scribd. She sees the site as having potential for other laid-off editors who want to transfer their skills to the digital publishing profession.

"The desire to get published will not disappear, and people will always need to have their work edited and need advice about how to construct their stories," said Kinsella, who wrote the memoir, "Visiting Life." "I think a lot of people are coming to me because there have been a lot of layoffs in the publishing world as well. Even those who want a traditional publishing experience seem to want to try out Scribd, too."

The journalists who seem to be the most successful when it comes to driving people to their content are those who viral market their work and categorize it with search engine optimization in mind. Categories such as "academic research" "books" and "creative writing," are among the more highly-searched categories, said Tammy Nam, Scribd's vice president of content and marketing.

"Some people are really good at using Scribd and promoting it through Facebook and YouTube and Twitter," Nam said.

She noted that some news organizations such as National Public Radio, The New York Times and The Atlantic have used the site to embed documents in online versions of stories, but not to make money.

For most journalists, income from Scribd won't replace a salary or subsidize investigative reporting on the same scale newsrooms have. But as digital publishing diversifies, Scribd is an alternative that offers individuals an immediate method for earning money from their work.

Have you used Scribd? Share your experience.