Motley Fool plans to pay bloggers up to $100 per post

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

The Motley Fool, an investing website, is seeking bloggers for a network that will roll out in early 2012 and plans to pay up to $100 per article, according to an e-mail sent out Tuesday by Roger Friedman, the head of the blogging network.

In the e-mail, Friedman says that an entry that is thoughtful, well-written, and makes specific and relevant mention of businesses and their tickers will be syndicated by Motley Fool to other sites — Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, and DailyFinance ticker feeds — and the writer will receive $50.

Writers whose 10 most recent articles average 2,500 views and the stories are viewed as top-notch by the Fool will be paid $100 per entry, added Friedman.

” For some of you, that might just be a starting point for your relationship with the Fool,” wrote Friedman in the email. “We’ll be keeping an eye out for the best writers and the bloggers who earn the biggest followings, and we’ll be offering writer contracts to the best of the best. And that can lead to even bigger things.”

He noted that Motley Fool recently published a book by one of its contributors, Morgan Housel, who started working for the company in 2008 as a freelancer. Housel became a columnist in 2010, and he has won two consecutive Society of American Business Editors and Writers “Best in Business” awards for his columns, and now has turned his columns into a bestselling e-book.

The Motley Fool blogging network has signed up about 200 writers so far, but Friedman expects there to be 500 when it launches on Jan. 2.

“We will not become another pump-and-dump message board that allows anonymous bloggers free reign,” said Friedman. “We only want and will only syndicate quality insights created by writers who stand behind their work. And I ask you to hold me personally accountable to ensure that we never devolve into a site none of us wants to read.”

If you’re interested, send an e-mail to blog@fool.com.