Here is a little trick I began using over a year ago: content leasing. Rather than commissioning writers and artists to create content for my web sites I asked these content providers if they had any old work gathering dust. To cut costs even further I asked if I could purchase rights to use it for a year.

Once an artist myself, I knew just how much “junk” I had produced while practicing my skills. I hypothosized correctly that other content producers experienced the same. Photographers, writers, illustrators, and even musicians accumulate loads of content which isn’t fit for much of anything.

No right-minded content producer is going to lease you brand new work. Few are going to take a pass at virtually free money.

Buying unwanted content is hardly a new idea — be it a lease or an outright purchase. I happened to be watching a new show on CNBC the other day, Conversations with Michael Eisner. On the show he was interviewing cable mogul Ted Turner. By purchasing old content and packaging it together — e.g. The Cartoon Network — he was able to turn a very healthy profit.

Yes, free user-submitted content is ideal. But, sometimes you need the bait to get those contributing users there in the first place. Two choices: make it yourself or you buy it (alternatively you can raise the Jolly Roger; not recommended.)

Good ideas need to be rooted in reality. If you want to get a good deal, that deal needs to look good to the seller too. In this month’s Business 2.0 a real estate investor makes hundreds of thousands buying homes before the banks foreclose on them and they go to auction. How does he pull it off? Not only does the investor offer to cover the soon to be ex-homeowner’s mortgage back payments and put them up in an apartment for free, the investor also cuts a commission check to the distressed seller once he sells it at market price.

Before you think of buying a package of dirt-cheap hackjob articles considering alternative sources where you can buy quality articles at about the same price — by leasing them.

There are no excuses for no content in this business.