I am working to build a new local online newspaper as well as a recruiting campaign to bring in writers. I was wondering what would be the best way to go about pitching this to writers. Right now the we are willing to share ad revenue with select writers who we feel will be long term quality contributors. However we also want to bring into the fold people who are willing to do unpaid writing. Ideally we want to convert those unpaid writers into paid writers via a revenue share, but after a period of time where we can evaluate their work as well as build the ad infrastructure to support them.
I have seen a lot of sites like Bleacher Report and Patch and various other local for profit online papers recruit unpaid writers. What is their plan of attack? Email people? What might be a sample email pitch? Direct calls? Other than Twitter and LinkedIn, how can we find writers? When I was at another marketing firm, we had a similar project and the team did a lot of email pitches. And with no luck. I am very interested to hear what unique ideas people have found to work for such a campaign.
THANKS!