Production

[Goalsethigh]

I figured out that I have to write two articles a day, six days a week to meet my financial goals. What kind of production schedule do ya'll keep?

[ecdoran]

Theoretically, I'd love to write and submit several articles per day, but it never happens. I have a hard time submitting new articles if I have two or more waiting to be reviewed. It's something I should just get over, but it makes me nervous for some reason. I suppose I'm just silly. I also planned on setting strict 'work hours', but that doesn't seem to work either. I keep leaning more towards finding a more reliable source of income and then spend the next eight or nine hours applying to jobs that never pan out. It's a fun time... Or not

[Goalsethigh]

Ha! That's the same thing that is happening to me. If I'm waiting for an article to review, I can't seem to write anything else. Maybe I don't want to invest to much time, until it starts paying off a little more. But, it won't pay off any more until I write more articles. I did get over a little hump and submitted two articles at one time the other day. Baby steps.

[jadedragon]

The benefit of writing is that it can be a reliable source of income IF you really put the effort in. I run another couple businesses, plus a blog, but I occasionally do bursts of articles for CC. Had 5 cued up yesterday. Having articles in the cue does not bother me - and neither does having unsold articles in inventory. Once you hit submit it's not your problem anymore. The article will either get accepted or not, and once accepted it will sell in its own sweet time. Nothing we can do to wish it to sell.

[ecdoran]

I'm not going to lie, I always think that submitting more than two articles is somehow flooding the system, ed will be annoyed, and (s)he'll be especially harsh. Then the world will end.

Okay, I know none of that is true and there's nothing wrong with "flooding the system", but it's a hard habit to break I also get discouraged when I submit stuff and nothing sells, even though it gets lots of views. Very, very discouraging.

[PeggyTee]

There are stats out there showing articles vs sales ratios in the "How to Sell More Articles" threads in the Author Exchange forum. Generally for every two articles I write, one sells, but not always immediately. Keeping track of your own inventory will show individual sales patterns emerging depending on your area of expertise, but for the majority of writers here, I believe a sale ratio of 65-70% is the norm.

The trick is to keep writing and building up your portfolio. Customers cannot buy unwritten work! I recently sold a rash of 6 articles. The earliest of these were written in July 2009; the most recent was last week. All of them sold yesterday. Point being that although it may be discouraging watching your articles get hits but no sales, eventually they will sell to the right buyer. Don't get discouraged!