No, I'm not crazy!

I wrote a short note a couple of days ago saying that it seems to take a whole lot longer to reach the 3,000 points mark to get $50 for one month's work on Gather. I wondered if it was just my imagination. Well, it's not!

I went back to May 2006 when I first joined Gather. That was when I was very excited about this site and what it had to offer. That month, I wrote 73 articles and made the 3,000 points mark. The next month, I wrote 111 articles to meet that amount.

This month, however, I have been researching and writing like mad to provide informative and interesting articles. I have written 124 articles so far, but have only gained 1,628 points.

Yes, I realize that some articles are shorter or longer than others, but the majority of them are a good size, being either personal comments about things or articles on a particular place, subject or person. The vast majority of them are at least 30 lines or more, with some being much longer.

I did not even try to accumulate the necessary points in November or December, as I was just too busy. This month though, I decided to go for it and have to say I am extremely disappointed with my progress. I still have 1,372 points to get and it is quickly nearing the end of the month. That would mean writing many, many more articles in just a matter of days.

May I also point out that Gather informed me in June that they would soon be makng arrangements to pay writers in Canada. In the meantime, I was encouraged to continue collecting points. Well, it has not happened and no one seems to know when it might.

Also, when one sits down and tries to figure out just what he or she is getting for their hard work, it becomes really meaningless. For instance, if I write a 30-line article, with 12 words per line, that's 360 words per article. Multiply that by say 111 articles like I wrote in June, that is 39, 960 words. Now, if you get $50 total, I challenge you to even try to figure out what rate per word you're getting. It's darn near impossible! It's easier to calculate how much per article and that comes to approximately 45 cents.

Needless to say, I've given up now. I won't be trying to reach the mark this month or any other month for that matter. There are other sites on the Internet that pay Canadians and pay much better than Gather. I really feel that I'm wasting my time, especially since I have other writing projects on the go that are very important to me. Now I know some of you will say Gather is about much more than making money. It's good that you feel that way, because you're really not going to make much anyway.

I agree that Gather is also a social site where one gets to meet other writers from around the world and I do appreciate that very much. I have interacted with many wonderful people here and would love to continue meeting more. However, it comes to a point where one has to set his or her priorities as well. I am on a low, fixed income, so any extra little bit of money I can make each month really does make a difference.

However, I will still contribute to this site once in a while and I've made a number of friends here so I will continue reading the work of others when I am able to do so. I will also follow what's happening in my groups. I just will not dedicate myself to Gather any more! That's the bottom line.