By NYU Staff

Image: Maggie Smith / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As a new freelancer, Nate Gronewold was looking for a way to attract attention to the quality of his work, though he didn’t have an extensive history as a writer. He was coming off a job as an assistant reporter for Nikkei, a Japanese newspaper, at the UN, where he had gathered “notes and quotes,” since a native Japanese speaker wrote the articles. Gronewold couldn’t find an easy way to broadcast his pitches or to offer up pieces he’d written. “I had to offer my very first article to the publication for free, to encourage them to try me out. It worked, but it wasn’t easy.”

Now, Gronewold is launching a site called Reptile, which he believes will be a solution to that problem. Writers put up drafts or pitches for publishers to browse. Publishers can also put out ads for certain topics and articles. Publishers and writers communicate through the service’s messaging system and after publishers have put out a bid and the journalist has accepted one, the article is sent to the publisher. Both parties also get contact info for the other. As Gronewold explains, anonymity is allowed, the site doesn’t take assume any control of the articles, and the process “allows writers to showcase their work and ideas without having to wow a publication with a thick resume first.”

There are other sites that allow writers to get their work noticed, but that work is usually up for republication, or syndication. One such site is Featurewell, which was started back in 2000 by David Wallis. At the time, Wallis had recently sold an article featuring his interview of a jailed Manuel Noriega to publications in 20 countries. Featurewell is a way to help writers resell their work and also “offers writers a reason to try to keep their rights,” Wallis says. More than 1000 writers have submitted work to Featurewell, Wallis says, and the site also syndicates for outlets like New York Observer and TV Guide. One Featurewell contributor is Taylor Eason, who writes about wine and came to the site after Wallis contacted her. She has noticed more attention to her articles because of the service and says the process is easy: editors buy her article, she is told about it by Wallis, and then she is mailed a check. Wallis says there are about 30 top-notch pieces on the site each week and because of this, editors are drawn to the site.

That’s something Gronewold hopes to be able to claim one day. He says the only big challenge Reptile is facing right now is getting publishers interested in the site. The obstacle is two-fold, he says, because publishers are hard to market to and “seem wary of new technology and new ways of doing things.” At Featurewell, writers get 60% of what publishers pay for their work, with the remaining 40% going to the site. To start, Reptile will be free for users, but will eventually take up a subscription revenue model.

Gronewold isn’t yet sure how many people he’ll need on the site, but once the site has reached a certain amount of traffic, he’ll start charging $10 per month after a free trial month. That number — $10/month — was chosen in order to keep it low, but not so low that “the crazies” can abuse the site, he says. Publishers will also be charged, because with a free service, “it’s likely that they’d value it less and not really use it,” Gronewold says.

Gronewold started Reptile using his own money and has set a two-year time window for the site to become a sustainable business, since he says “monthly upkeep is cheap.” But if Reptile is losing money after two years? “Then I’ll put it out to pasture,” Gronewold says.

Read more about freelance life:

Freelancers, Beware the Lawsuit

Freelancers Stress Flexibility in Tough Economy