Xenite.Org News

Suite101 to cease paying contributing editors

December 30, 2001 at 23:57:09

Suite101.com has announced that, in order to reduce its costs, it will no longer pay its contributing editors for their articles.

Suite101 is a community-oriented Web site which has managed to survive the dot-com meltdown despite having no revenue model to speak of. The Canadian company's stock trades for pennies per share after having peaked around $12 per share in early 2000.

Xenite.Org founder Michael Martinez has been writing a popular column on Tolkien and Middle-earth for Suite101 since August 1999. Some of his Suite101 essays were published in Visualizing Middle-earth in 2000. A planned sequel is being considered for publication by a small press.

At the end of November, Martinez announced that his contributions for the Tolkien and Middle-earth topic would be reduced from weekly essays to monthly essays. He is currently engaged on a book-length project which prevents him from maintaining the weekly schedule. Martinez has not responded to the Suite101 decision.

Some of Martinez' Suite101 essays have been republished on other Web sites with the author's permission. All rights to the essays revert to the author after 90 days, according to the standard Suite101 Contributing Editors contract. It is not clear what rights, if any, Suite101 will claim in the process of changing its business plan.