What Every Writer Should Know Before Trusting SteadyContent
When it comes to people, I think nominative determinism is nonsense.
But when it comes to businesses, I expect them to deliver on what their name promises.
An agency called SteadyContent should, in theory, provide a steady stream of freelance writing work. If you are reading this, you probably think so too.
Sadly, that was not what I experienced.
This is the story of my worst experience in two and a half years as a full-time content writer.
What You Should Know Before Trusting SteadyContent
They Seem Good At First
Let's start with the positives.
They do have a lot of work, and they do pay (mostly).
Their instructions are clear, and they provide helpful documents with their guidelines, FAQs, and sample pieces.
You have to write some trial pieces to get accepted. As far as I remember, the first two of these were unpaid but very short, and then there were meant to be three paid trial pieces, but I got accepted after submitting two.
My main contact there, Jared White, seemed genuinely nice.
When there was a slight delay in payment, he let me know in advance, and when I had trouble with the editors later, he got personally involved on my behalf.
Or at least he said he did.
Regrettably, things did not work out, and that is why I am writing this warning for writers considering applying there.
They Are Not Reliable
The work is steady until suddenly (and wrongly, but more on that later) it is not, which is useless if you need to budget or plan for the future.
You, as a writer, are the chicken in Bertrand Russell's famous analogy, trusting the farmer more each day he feeds you, until the day he suddenly wrings your neck.
So, how exactly did I end up in that situation?
It all started after about two months of working for them, when I received a strange revision request on a bog-standard article, the kind I had written almost 30 of by that time.
From the feedback, it looked like the editor had read a completely different piece, claiming things were missing that were clearly there.
I emailed support asking for clarification, honestly expecting to hear back that the feedback was meant for someone else.
They Withhold Payment Without Reason
Three working days passed, during which I submitted one more article.
Then one morning, that article vanished (along with the prospect of payment for the 2-3 hours it took), and I received a generic, unsigned email saying my account had been "paused," but not specifying why.
It said that pending work would still be paid and I'd still have a chance to resubmit pieces if there were issues, so I asked for it back but got nothing.
I emailed support, asking them to reconsider pausing my account, and received an email saying that the (still unnamed) editor had decided that a piece of my work (which one?) was written by AI.
This is a cardinal sin of freelance writing, and as a full-time writer, it is something I strictly avoid.
I felt relieved that it wasn't a quality issue and that they were the ones in the wrong, but how can someone defend themselves against this accusation?
They Terminate Accounts Over Lies
Even if I could have defended myself against the AI claim, I fear it would not have mattered. Somebody wanted me out.
Everybody knows that AI detectors have a high risk of false positives, and this is increasing as LLMs learn more and improve.
Nobody competent would take one flagged article after dozens of fine ones seriously. You have to consider the context, which they evidently did, saw that it did not support their claim, and then made up instead.
They said I claimed an article and submitted the finished product, all in just 17 minutes.
That never happened.
In fact, I never submitted any article within two hours of claiming it.
I'm generally a believer in Hanlon's Razor, and thought that the editor had perhaps misread 170 minutes as 17. Alas, no. Jared confirmed that they would not be changing their decision about my account.
Important Lessons For Content Writers
Do Your Own AI Checks
I don't for a second believe that they really thought my writing was AI, as I always write in my natural voice, and they'd accepted dozens of my articles already.
However, it would've been nice to have had something to defend myself with when they decided that was the excuse they were going with.
That's why I now run all of my client work through an AI detector and screenshot the results.
Spread Your Writing Around
Luckily, I had the good sense to carry on working for other clients alongside this agency, rather than working exclusively for them.
It would've been easy to work just for them, too. I liked their platform, and I liked waking up and seeing a big list of jobs to pick from. They also paid better than some of my other clients.
But the right thing is usually the hard thing, and in this case it served me well.
Online Jobs Are Double-Edged Swords
I love working online, don't get me wrong. Being a content writer gives me the freedom to work from anywhere and manage my own time. But interacting over the internet makes people lose their humanity.
If that editor had to tell those lies to my face, would they have found it so easy?
I doubt it. I'd still say the positives of remote work far outweigh the benefits, but the people you work with will care about you less.
SEO Writing Isn't That Complicated
If you're new to writing, you'll probably have noticed that lots of jobs require you to be "familiar with SEO principles" or something like that.
That used to put me off of applying for lots of them, and I always wondered what it really meant.
If there was one positive I took away from this experience, it was that SEO writing is not really all that mysterious or technical.
Here's how SteadyContent optimized their clients' on-site blog posts:
- Keyword should appear twice in 500-word articles, once more for every extra 500
- Keyword should appear in the intro and a subheading (or the main heading)
- Keyword in the intro should link to a high-authority neutral website
- Keep subheadings simple, too (3-5 words, unless it's a question)
- Keep paragraphs short and readable (80 words max.)
- No more than two paragraphs per subheading
- Intro and conclusion should be 1 paragraph
That's (pretty much) all, folks!
Writers, Beware
So that was my experience.
I will never know who made the decision to terminate my account, nor why, because they never contacted me directly. That should tell you as much as you need to know about this agency.
In my years as a content writer, I'm just glad this is the first bad client I've had. Work with me, treat me fairly, and I'll be the most loyal, hardworking writer you'll know.