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Suite101 is an online magazine that has published articles by 10,000 freelance writers and experts. These non-fiction articles are created by topic experts, professional writers, and people who know a specific topic very well. Suite101 topic areas focus on lifestyle areas such as home, design, and finance. Within each topic area, contributors write about a wide range of subjects ranging from highly niche topic areas such as volcanic ash or how to fix models antique cars. By providing an online publishing platform and inviting people to write well-referenced articles on any topic they wish, Suite101 has developed a community or network of writers. These writers or contributors write at home and publish or upload their articles to a team of editors. This team of editors helps Suite101 act a curator of content or articles.

Current editors with Suite101.com include well known topic experts and award-winning teachers and writers, such as Lynn Coady.

Revenue that is earned from the advertisements that appear beside articles, are gathered by Suite101 and distributed to writers. As a Canadian company, Suite101 is able to work with writers in any country. In the past two years the site has doubled its readership.

In November 2009, Suite101.com was named by comScore as one of the top 10 fastest growing websites based on US traffic growth.

History
Suite101 was started in 1996 in Vancouver, BC. The original founders included non-fiction and fiction writers who invited local writers to visit the site and post articles about a range of topics.

The site continued for nearly a decade (1996–2005) by simply being a source for writers to share their knowledge, freely. During this time, online courses were offered by Suite101 in an attempt to create revenue for the company by offering “Suite University” however this effort did not survive.

By 2005, unique visitors to the site had reached four million visitors per month, however the company did not have a viable business model in place. In 2006 the company was purchased by Canadian and German investors including Boris Wertz, a past founder of JustBooks.de and a previous COO at Abebooks.com. He was joined in the purchase by the digital media arm of Hubert Burda Media, one of Germany’s leading publishing houses.

Under this new leadership, Suite101 expanded its editorial team, in part by recruiting contract editors from the book and magazine publishing. On the business model side, the site, under new CEO Peter Berger, added advertising to each article page through a partnership with Google Adsense.

In September 2008, Suite101 expanded into Europe by launching Suite101.de and establishing an office in Berlin. This was followed by launching Suite101.fr in France, and Suite101.net in Spain in 2009, and establishing offices in Paris and Madrid., In July 2009, Lena Gott, a part time Suite101 writer, accountant and self-described “stay at home mom” set a record for monthly writer earnings on Suite101 with her articles bringing in $4950.