Windup Bird

At the end of last year, an Australasian online publisher invited its readers to become film reviewers for the site. I can’t remember the wording. The thing that stood out was the remuneration: zero.

Here’s a word of advice to the publishers: your content may be free to your readers, but if you’re not paying for it yourself, you won’t have any readers.

If someone wants to know whether to shell out $15 for a movie ticket, are they going to read a critique by another reader whose reviews are of so little value they write them for nothing, or will they go to a website like Variety or Empire magazines and read what the experts are saying?

By the way, Windup Bird’s about to move to the next level and we need a sales person. We can’t pay anything, but it will give the right person an opportunity to be involved in something really rewarding.