Two weeks ago I blogged that, against YOUR advice, I would be offering my blogging services on a weekly basis to a larger media company - for free.

Here’s the latest update. Nine days ago I submitted an article to the company. And since then: silence.

My article has not appeared on their live site and I have not been updated as to when it would appear. In the meantime, I did not submit an article last week. I plan to hold back until the editor explains what their editorial process is. In hindsight, a question that I should have asked (or the company should have outlined) ahead of time.

Next time, I’ll be sure to find out:

- How in-depth will my piece be edited; content? length? spelling? etc.

- When I should expect to see the article posted.

- How stringent the issued word count is.

- Who I can contact if my main contact is out of the office.

- As estimate of traffic I should expect from my blog entry.

My goal with this series of posts is to help you make better decisions in similar situations. I also hope they’ll open the eyes of companies that pursue bloggers on what they should and shouldn’t do.

Last month I asked: “Should You Allow Major Media to Publish Your Blog Posts?”

The answer was a resounding, “NO!”

Since I can never resist going against the current, I’ve just signed on to blog for free (once a week) for a decent-sized media company.

While I completely agree with most of you that this will likely result in greater success for the company, and not little ol’ me, I’m looking at it as an experiment.

The contract clearly states that they can pimp my name, my blog’s name, my likeness, etc. for THEIR financial gain. Also, the content has to be 100% fresh and can’t be posted on my blog. Since the two are closely related, in a way, I’m robbing my blog of good content. I can ‘opt out’ at any time.

I will use this space in the coming weeks to report the results. Perhaps we’ll all be pleasantly surprised. At the very least, you can sit back and say, ‘told ya so,’ when I help the corporate monster grow even larger.