Accepted to Payment?

[LauraGinn]

About 3 weeks I think.

[Isabelnewth]

I think there may be confusion here.

If a buyer makes a reduced offer for an article and you accept it, there is still no obligation on the buyer to go ahead and buy. Sometimes they don't. But there is nothing to lose by accepting an offer if you are happy with the amount, since the article will stay on sale and can be bought by another buyer until it's actually purchased.

An accepted offer can just sit there for ages and may never turn into a sale.

If an article is bought, then you will get an email saying that your article has been sold, and you will then get paid near the beginning of the following month, unless you are on a 2 week pay cycle.

Regards.

[Isabelnewth]

Yes, this site is good in many ways, but communication is NOT a strong point.

[MordantC]

I am starting to wonder whether there might not be a problem with the system. I've had several offers on articles which I've duly accepted. The articles are still sitting there, marked as accepted but with no further interaction. The oldest has been there since May. In one case, the same client has made the same offer on the same article twice; both were accepted, but nothing else has happened. I don't understand.

[Lysis]

I think people are misunderstanding how it works.

As a customer, I go and find articles I like.
I send you an offer.
You accept.
I must still buy it.

I still have the option to say "meh, change my mind" and never buy. Accepting does not mean you'll get a sale. It's just that the customer sent you an offer.

[MordantC]

Sure, I understand that. But when there are several offers going back over a period of months without being completed, and a customer has made two offers on the same piece, it looks as if something odd is going on.

[Lysis]

I can assure you with 99% confidence that nothing strange is going on and this has been going on since offers were implemented.

The customer is just throwing out offers and seeing who bites and then taking the time to decide or just liking someone else's article better and going with theirs.

Don't you ever go to the store and pick up something and just say "meh" later and exchange it or decide not to buy it? Same thing.

[Lysis]

I like the "no communication." I don't really want to talk to anyone. That's the part I like about this site. I put something up and it sells or doesn't. I'm on Elance too, and I find the communication more tedious than clicking yes or no to an offer. You and I have the option to turn off offers if we don't want them. (I turn them off because I didn't find them profitable)

You are in essence a vendor placing things on a shelf in a store. The customer can buy, return, or change his mind. These are things that won't change.

You are right that most stores just sell at a flat price, but you have that option too by turning off offers.

It's not personal. It's just business.

[MordantC]

I did think of dropping the selling price of the articles to the amount that's been offered... but then I'd probably get offers that are even lower.

[ReneeF]

So, you base your whole possible future here based on one article you posted and you never posted any more?

I had a friend that did that, he is still writing for a penny per word.

If you want results, you have to repeat the test more than once or twice or even three times. Only then can you judge if this place will work out for you.

Also, why bother allowing them to make offers or get group discounts? You want a certain price for your article and stick with the price you quoted. The right person will come around.

[Abbamay]

I think Renee is just saying that you keep writing and submitting over time and eventually most things sell. Of course you choose whether or not you want to allow customers to make an offer. I allow offers and I accept or reject them but I don't worry about it - it's not a big part of what we do here. Most articles seem to sell for the price you ask for.

If you're interested, we're currently talking about offers not yet turned into sales at this thread: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=76845

[ReneeF]

Oh wow.

Abamay was right, I wasn't comparing you, i was comparing your results and showing you that we cant base our opinions on one result alone, just like we shouldn't base our opinions about other people by one comment in a forum and then go on to attack them. I was trying to encourage you to try harder. This place used to be where I dumped my higher paying reject articles. I only recently began taking client requests, after 3 years of being here. I like working here for less only because, it is nice not to have to work with deadlines ALL. THE. TIME.

As for my former "colleague" he and his wife seem to pay their bills quite nicely, so obviously they are not failing in their writing business decisions. Once again, I was pointing out how we can't judge a site by one bad experience, we might miss out on a great opportunity if we simply flounce and leave at the first sign of miscommunication.

Tone is the voice you use inside your head hun. But you seem very angry, so I will leave you alone and hope all the best for you and all your business decisions.

[JasmineStone]

IreneA, there are lots of writers here receiving offers with no sales from this buyer, but that doesn't mean that s/he is playing games. I've had sales from this buyer before and they were not low offers, so the customer is genuine. Having said that, ranting and raving and slagging off customers on a public forum, especially when the customer has been named in another thread, will, I imagine, make customers think twice before buying from CC.

[LauraGinn]

I started writing a reply here, but I deleted it because this thread is getting out of hand. I would like to say though, that if you contacted CC directly, it's likely that you wouldn't get a reply. They're not known for their great communication skills and it's something that has frustrated a lot of writers if you look through these forums. You'd probably also get directed to the forums whilst waiting for a reply that probably wouldn't come.

It's Friday, it's nearly the weekend. I think we all need to relax the creative in us and start a fresh on Monday.

[Lysis]

oy vey I miss the good rants when they do happen here. I don't understand why writers get so offended by lowball offers when you check off "accept offers." Back when the $3 offers were enraging people, there were a lot of writers who sold at the price. Nothing wrong with throwing out the offer and seeing who bites.

I did think of dropping the selling price of the articles to the amount that's been offered... but then I'd probably get offers that are even lower.

lol you are probably right.

I've had a couple of articles that got lowball offers, rejected them, and they sold in full. Also had a couple I wish I had taken because the articles aren't likely to sell. I'd sell them for $3 just to empty them, but I'm not fond of managing offers for each individual article. If someone said to me "I'd buy all your 2009 articles for $3/article," I'd probably dump them.

I always add my articles to the discount list because I'm hoping that list turns out to be older articles that didn't sell.