Article submission sites: Why can’t I use pictures?!

I’ve been writing articles and stories on the Internet for a couple of years now and I’ve come to realize that there’s something very wrong with current article submission sites. If you write articles for Newspapers or magazines you will have noticed that most of the stories have photographs or pictures accompanying the text. It adds a whole dimension to the story, piquing interest in the words that may have otherwise been skimmed over and ignored as just being another of an infinite number of articles. Extremely valuable information could be lost to our consciousness, and to our community on the Internet. Pictures have been used in the ‘paper’ for decades, if not centuries. We’ve come to expect an exciting aesthetic presence when something new and interesting is presented to society. So, why is it that this area of the most modern medium for the written word doesn’t allow images?

My company submits my articles to over one hundred article repository sites around the Internet. Recently I started to work in a collaborative effort with a graphic designer who drew up both comics and Flash animations to go with the stories. It’s remarkable to say that only a fifth of the sites would accept an image with the piece, while only a twentieth would allow the Flash animation to be used. This could be considered as an outrage. Personally, I have to admit that I simply judge it as a sign that the World Wide Web is in many ways still an infant, or better yet, an unborn pregnancy.

Why do the article submission sites have a problem with having images in the text? Could it be that they worry too much about the cost of added disc-space and bandwidth needed to upload the pictures? I don’t know but if you are reading this I urge you that if you want people to come and visit your site repeatedly, you have to make it worthwhile. Content is the most important aspect of the Internet, but people do get tired of looking at boring pages filled with only text. Imagine buying a magazine these days that only has words, photos and pictures having been deleted for the sake of experiment. No one would want it, I mean, half the time it’s the pictures that you’re searching for in the first place, or they’re what inspire you to read a specific story, while ignoring others.

If you are a webmaster of an article submission site, please go to www.blog.m6.net and leave a comment so that I can know why when it comes to publishing my works, we are still living in the ‘ancient’ past.