Constant Content

When submitting articles, can word count be rounded off or should it be exact? And if someone requests a 500 word article, I'm assuming they mean approximately?

How important is a profile? I haven't put one up because I don't have a clue how to do the picture. I'm thinking they're less interested in how I look than my writing ability, anyway, so haven't been concerned. Should I be concerned?

I have a few articles up which have been steadfastly ignored by all. Again, should I be concerned? I've been here about a month. When should I realize I'm just spinning my wheels?

Pricing. I hate pricing, don't really understand it, and am probably not doing it properly, whatever properly might be. Is there someone who can give me feedback on pricing? Does Ed do that? Feel free to wound me to the core.

I want to maximize whatever potential I may have here as a writer. To that end, I should probably learn something about key word optimization...and...uh...other stuff. I'd list the other stuff, but I don't know what it is yet. Is there a link to other stuff I need to know in order to make the most of my efforts?

Is there a buddy system, a mentoring system, a hand-holding option on this site for me?

I'm feeling sort of discouraged.

Hi Everhelpville,

Firstly, don't be discouraged as yet. It took me six weeks and ten articles before my first one sold, but since then all of those articles have sold. Some articles do sell several months after being accepted on this site, especially ones that are on very specific topics.

I checked out your profile page, and I think you are pricing too highly. I would generally ask $100 for a 1000+ word article, not a 500 word article. I usually round up or down the word count to the nearest 10. When you submit an article, look at the typical prices link on the top of the submission page. It will help you with pricing. There are also several discussions on the forums about pricing, including some helpful articles from Constant Content officials who have put together information on what sells. You can also use the best offer option, which allows a customer to make an offer for a smaller price. You can then decide whether or not to accept the offer.

I have not included a photo either, however, I have used the opportunity to write some words about my areas of expertise. While the majority of customers simply browse or search for the articles they want, some will come back to specific authors to see what the author has written, which means the customer is looking at the profile page. Consider adding a brief blurb about your experience as a writer and topics you enjoy to write in. It is a marketing tool on the site for the authors, and it can't hurt to use it!

Keep writing and submitting articles. The more you write, the more you sell! Write on a number of different topics, and on articles that are not just for the requests. There is plenty of competition for the requests, but often writing an article on a completely different topic gets a sale. You can write about stuff you know well. I wrote one article on how to make pizza at home and it sold the next day! It was a simple little article and priced at $35 for full rights, because it really didn't take me very long - it was basically a recipe I use very often. I tend to focus on business articles because that is my area of expertise, but I also write relationship, cooking, reading, education, self improvement, weight loss, and computer articles reasonably often. I also try to write different articles in different topic areas that I haven't tried before - see this month's challenge to the authors in Author Exchange. I surprised myself with writing a fashion article a couple of months ago, and it has sold twice for usage! What I am trying to say is don't limit yourself to requests, although it is good to write those too. If you find articles are not selling, try a different topic and see if that one is more popular.

For the key word optimisation - unless it is specifically requested by a customer, I don't think about it all when I am writing. I just write what flows naturally and makes sense to the reader on the topic. For the "other stuff", I suggest you read the forums, there is truly a wealth of information on this site for authors. Hang in there!

Asking for help in the forums is wise, as you will probably get several authors responding to you, and may get different answers to what I have suggested. Rather than a specific buddy or mentoring system, we all mentor and help each other out in this community of writers through the forums, which is one of the things I love about CC! That said though, if you do want specific advice that you do not want to ask in the forums, feel free to send me an email through the Contact this Author button on my profile page.

Hope this all helps,

Hayley

Thanks for responding.

I'm not flouncing out in a huff quite yet. But in weighing my frustration against the rewards thus far, my frustration is in the lead. It's particularly challenging because I'm trying to weave writing for cc in with a somewhat consuming full time job. My hope was that I could eventually bail on the one and devote myself fully to the other.

Success here seems to be less about writing ability than what you know? I personally find most of the public requests so bizarre that I've yet to spot one I could respond to without research. And I can't imagine researching and writing even a 500-word article for a pittance. Unless I'm missing something, it's a comical pittance possibly appealing to someone picking lint from their naval.

Unless a writer has several areas of expertise which enable her to spew articles with little to no research, it doesn't appear encouraging. I must research everything, including subjects I may be somewhat knowledgeable about, just to verify. When I factor in research, the time involved even in short pieces goes through the roof and I price accordingly. It's not the consumer's fault I'm a dummy, but I need to find a zone that's acceptable to me as well as consumers. I'm just not sure that's possible.

Also, Ed and I have played ping pong with a couple of my articles which is a real head-banging experience. Once I let an article go, I never want to see that thing again. Not that I hold it against Ed, but it's mortifying to realize I'm so grammatically rusty. Never mind that 97% of readers wouldn't recognize a misplaced semi colon if moonwalked across the page, the mechanics of writing are a necessary evil I'm trying to brush up on and develop patience with.

Intellectually, I realize I'm surrounded by hundreds and thousands of potential articles. But when I'm driving home from work and wondering what I might write about, my brain is as dull as sandpaper and the world looks like a big blank white sheet without so much as one interesting dot. Maybe generating ideas is the real talent required here.

I appreciate your encouragement in response to my venting. I do plan to muddle about a bit more here. I love the craft of writing and won't be happy turning loose until I've peeked under every possible rock. In fact, maybe I will set up a paypal account...just in case. I haven't done that yet.

Oh...one more thing...it looks like there are ads in the forums where posts should be? What's up with that? Make that two more things: If an article is purchased for a web site, what's to keep it from being stolen from said web site?

Ever,

I guess it's all in your perspective. The "pittance" for articles on CC seems like a fortune to me. I was making $1 an article a month ago (yes, I worked for an article broker before I knew better!) and the freedom to write about anything you are interested in is heavenly. Every time I make a sale, even a $15 one, I think "that pays for my weenie dog's heartworm meds for next month" or "that just paid for my gas bill". Of course I don't have a full time job to compare it with since I'm on a real pittance with Disability.

But I know what you mean about maximizing time invested in making money. When I first came here (about a month ago), I spent more time trying to figure out the percentages and which topics would sell best and which would take the least time and obsessively clicking on the "Recently Sold Content" and "Requested Content" buttons that I barely wrote anything. I too did not feel I had enough expertise to write about anything. But two of my three sales so far have been on topics I know nothing about: Electrical Contracting and Credit Report Disputes. I simply geared them toward my own experience and writing style (and a little research) and they were both snapped up the next day.

There was a week or so when there were few public requests and I ended up writing articles about things I was interested in. One of these articles (about my favorite thing--dogs) sold after a week. I now have offers on two other articles I wrote (also with no background) from public requests the first day I was here. I do feel impatient though, I want to be Celeste Stewart or Word Gypsy overnight, though I know it has taken them years to build up their thousands of articles portfolio. I want to sell $150 articles and get bushels of private requests. Maybe that will come in time, but right now I figure I'm paying my dues.

I am so bitten by the CC bug that everything I do, everywhere I go, everyone I talk to makes me think “Hey, that would make a great article!” I have so many topic ideas in my “in progress” folder, I am having a hard time getting them completed before I start working on the next one.

And don’t forget, you can make money by referring other writers to CC too. Five percent of their sales will go to you (out of CC’s portion, not yours). I’ve referred two writers already and am really rooting for them to sign up and make their first sale.

Considering the real pittance you get from places like Associated Content, CC is a treasure trove. Compared to the unpalatable bidding wars of Elance, CC is stress-free. Having spent years selling one out of a hundred (or more) pieces to print publications, CC is so easy! Considering the helpful and encouraging writers' community here, CC feels like home

Hmm, I just wrote over 500 words on this post. I could have written an article instead! 

Debbi

Hi Ever

I'm fairly new here too, but do remember thinking that at least one article was priced rather high, given the subject and the word count. Maybe a little tweaking, at least initially, might be a good idea. I too didn't have any sale for over a month, and then, suddenly, things started happening.

The nice thing about writing for public requests - topics that are down your lane or that interest you - is that the subjects are usually ones that others also want - so even if your article doesn't get picked up by that particular customer, chances are high that someone else will come along shortly and pick it up. I look at the public requests as an ideas bank, since I tooo hold a full time "other" job, and am usually too mentally tired to think of topics at the end of the day, which is when I write.

About SEO and other stuff, I think CC is refreshingly free from it, and is really one of the few markets where good writing and interesting content are appreciated - and sell. While knowing about SEO is useful, it does not appear a major requirement at CC, thank god!

So hang on, keep writing, and don't give up just right. That first sale is probably right round the corner!

Best
CW

There's nothing wrong with the old saying "write what you know." There's also nothing wrong with expanding what you know with research - and research doesn't necessarily have to be difficult or overly time consuming.

I bring a lot of what I know to topics that I don't yet know much about. For example, I don't know much about dryers other than that my dryer takes three cycles to dry my clothes. Now, I know that it's pretty likely that the dryer vent is clogged with lint thanks to a flyer left on my doorstep the other day. I've scheduled a vent cleaning for Tuesday and you can bet I'll be writing about the topic later in the week.

It won't be difficult to do a little research on fire dangers and energy costs associated with clogged dryer vents - shoot, the flyer already brings up some interesting points to explore further. It even brings up the issue of mold and moisture buildup which I do happen to know about thanks to having written many articles about mold for an outside client. I'll also bring what I know about being a housewife dealing with loads of soggy laundry that won't dry as well as my perspective as a consumer to the writing. It won't necessarily be written from those perspectives but the spark starts there. While it seems like a boring topic, I'm looking forward to learning more about it and writing the article. Plus, when the article sells, it will pay a portion (if not all) of my vent cleaning bill.

In fact, that's how I started with CC - everything I did was fair game for an article. If I took the kids to see a movie, I wrote a movie review. If I had to learn how to create a table of contents in MS Word, I wrote a tutorial on how to create a table of contents in MS word. If it was my turn to host a playdate for six toddlers, I wrote an article on toddler-friendly activities. If I had trouble juggling work and family, I wrote an article about juggling work and family.

As far as requests, if they don't stir up any curiousity or interest, then skip them because without a basic itch to learn more about the topic, the finished article will likely end up being boring and uninformed. Sod lawn grass seems boring to me at first glance, but then the tie-in with reducing injuries in sports sounds interesting. I know I could write a decent article on that and perhaps have a little fun with it despite the topic being something I know nothing about right now. (Hint: use Google's advanced search filter to limit search results to .edu, .org, and .gov sites. I bet you could find credible studies comparing sports injuries on artificial versus natural turf - that's where I'd start). I've opted not to write this article though; not because of a lack of interest but because I have too many other things going on right now.

I will echo what Hayley and Cany said, I think that $100 for a 500-word article is too much for the current market. That's 20 cents a word and I haven't seen those rates often here, especially right now. A few times, yes, but just starting out here in today's economic climate, I'd be surprised if the articles sell for that. I'd try a price in the $40ish range for full rights myself.

Agreed, you don't need to worry too much about SEO unless the client specifies SEO expectations. Even then, the client will usually tell you what keyword phrases he wants and how often they should appear. Plus, the search engines appear to be moving toward more natural writing and "organic" keywords.

Also, those ads are nothing new. Spammers hit the forums hard. Haven't had a chance to clean them up yet today (busy writing the above post). Heading out right now for lunch. Will zap them later.

Okay, the common theme in response to my post seems to be that I need to keep my pricing in keeping with word count as opposed to the time involved in research and writing articles. I was afraid of that!

Also, I tend to see everyday life as a distraction from writing rather than offering potential article ideas. If Celeste sees her dryer dilemma as a potential article, I'm surely sitting on a ton of articles I just haven't recognized. I'll definitely work on that.

When I started this a few weeks ago, I told myself I'd stick with it six months and see what happened. I'm beginning to think three months is probably enough to give things a fair chance, but for now I'll just do some tweakin' and keep on truckin'.

I appreciate the input, and thank you for sharing your experiences!

I do price with time in mind as well as word count, but I also keep an eye on what the market will bear. It's a balancing act between time, expertise, and the marketplace. It takes a while to get a sense of the market and pricing. Eventually, you'll get a sense of how much time is reasonable for a given article length and price. Plus, the more you do, the easier research becomes. You definitely can sell $100 + articles here but the ones in that price range are generally longer.

I think a three-month test is a good length of time to see if CC works for you. That gives you time to generate a fair amount of content and see how the older articles do. Keep submitting, keep asking for help, and keep tweaking and I'll bet you'll be pleased with your results. Oh yeah, and remember that everything is a potential article

To give another perspective, I think that the number of articles submitted is more important than the amount of time you've been at CC, when determining whether or not to stick with it. If you look at the graph on the "How to Sell More Articles" thread, you can see how things seem to take off right around 100 articles. You've only submitted 7 articles. Even if you submit 20 or 30 by the end of the three-month trial, that's may not be enough of a critical mass. Of course everyone will have varying results--I've seen authors with portfolios of 20 or so pieces with nearly all of them sold. (But who knows how long it took them to sell?)

What seems to be working for me is focusing on what I CAN control (number of articles written) instead of what I CAN'T control (whether or not people buy them). My goal now is to have 100 articles accepted. As I approach that goal, the number of sales has also been increasing. I started in March. My first sale took about a month. Then there were intermittent periods of one or two weeks between sales. Then suddenly at the end of July, articles started selling more frequently and the current average is now only a day or so between sales.

If ideas come slow, take an existing article and re-work it several different ways:
How to do X, How not to do X, Facts about X, The Secret to X, How to Save Money Doing X, How Single Moms can do X, The benefits of X, the disadvantages of X, FAQ about X, Big Bird and X, Tom Cruise and X....

As long as you don't use the exact same wording in your articles, re-cycling content is a great way to reduce writing time, build your portfolio, and appeal to a wider market.

I hope this is encouraging. I know you're working full-time, so it may take you longer to build up a portfolio, but if you commit to staying until you have a portfolio of 100 articles, I guarantee you'll receive offers! If you don't, I promise I'll buy something myself! Good luck and let us know how it's going.

I agree it would be challenging to have to stick a certain number of keywords in an article and retain any flow. But I'm assuming keywords are something a customer definitely mentions, so we can opt out of torturing ourselves with keyword optimization if we choose to.

Beyond that, I think more specific info would be helpful. Do they want formal, factual information? Warm and fuzzy? A touch of humor? If they want everybody and their dog to visit their site, there's really no way to appeal to everybody, particularly the dog.

Anyway, are we encouraged to dialogue with a customer to get a greater sense of how they want an article written? I did that once, and received a kind response. But then I needed to respond to the response and became concerned about wearing out my welcome.

Antonio,

Thank you. Your response was encouraging, and your variations on the X theme made me laugh.

The notion of writing 100 articles before something happens gives me pause, tho'. Sheesh!
Oh, well. I have food for thought.

BTW, my last response here actually belonged on another thread. But since I've no idea how to get it from here to there, we'll just have to live with it where it makes no sense. I'd delete it, but I don't know how to do that, either.

I'm just not feeling very successful on this site!

Just to clarify, I wasn't implying in any way that you would have to write 100 articles "before something happens." My point was simply that the 100-article marker is a useful one to shoot for, since it takes the focus off sales and onto writing...but you will for sure sell SOMETHING before you get to that point! Things started to roll for me around 50 or 60, I think. When I get to 100 my new goal will be 150. Anyway, whatever kind of goal you come up with for yourself, I am rooting for you!

antoniA

It took me 20 articles before I sold my first one and it was for a reasonably priced public request. After about 30 articles is when I started to sell more.

Don't get discouraged. I just took a month off to regroup and take a break and sold 4 articles total for the month. That was fun. LOL

Besides, the OP made me chuckle with her comments. I don't know...she seems to have a good grasp of sarcastic humor in writing. That's hard to do.

Hiya Ever,

I'm one of the "successful" part-time writers here. I say "successful" because I make what I want here and I'm happy about that. On months where I really need extra money, and my other writing assignments are down, I will submit a ton. Other months, I only submit one or two articles. One thing that is hard to get over as a writer is the varying pay scale. For example, some of my more researched articles, like "Produce the Note" I price high. Others, like your flea market one I would price to move, because that topic would appeal to web masters who make money off of advertising, not paid subscriptions. They just don't usually have the budget to pay $50 for 300 words on a topic they can get much cheaper. Therefore, 330 wrods, basically a blog post, I personally would not price $50 for full rights, at $.05 per word, that's only $15, the par for a blog post on a generalized topic (i.e. you aren't really uncovering ground breaking information about flea markets) so to earn that, the C-C price would be $23 to account for the cut.

I don't say that to discourage you, but you do need to be realistic about your goals. If your goal is volume, price accordingly. Not saying undercut the other authors, like pricing for $1-$5 full rights, but keep in line with the market. The web market is NOTHING like the print market when it comes to writing. The good news, is here you can showcase your articles like an art gallery and walk away. You don't have to do the marketing, the spec letters, nothing. Now, that 330 word blog post may eventually sell for $50, but it is unlikely to do so quickly. Look to see how many hits you have, although now might not be a good indicator as many of us checked out your work to help you. But in the future, watch the hits on your articles, if you're getting lots of hits but no bites, you might be priced just a little out of the genre's budget.

To your question about researching and only making a pittance.. here is what I do. If I'm researching for an hour or so, I make sure I get enough material for 2-3 articles. Why? Because I know my personal ratio of sales to uploads is roughly 60-75%. I can bank that if I post 10 articles, I will sell about 6-7 of them within two months. Ofcourse I continue writing so there is overlap. So if I spent an hour researching, which I price my time accordingly, and I write 3 articles, I am sure one will sell usually quickly, and the other two will not be far behind. For example, there was a solar panel public request a while back. I researched for about an hour, and then wrote two articles, one suiting the public request and an additional one that took a different twist (how to maximize solar panels in less than ideal weather). Grand total I wrote 1800 words, spent 4 hours total researching, writing, and editing. The public request one sold one week later to a different buyer and the maximizing in less than ideal weather sold 3 months later for a use license, so I could sell that one again or put it in another market. Money wise, after the cut, I made $70, divided by 4 hours of "work" yielded me $17.50 an hour.

For me, that makes me squeal with glee. I can write part-time, a little 4 hour stint on the weekend or another day when I have time away from family obligations, and bring in a nice hourly paycheck. I couldn't find a part-time job paying that high, with flexible hours, and freedom over my activities. Those are very important to me. What you need to do is sit down and decide what is important to you. The very well-written, thought-provoking subjects do sell for top dollar here, but it takes a while for the right buyer to come along. Generalized content, you have a ton of competition here on this site and from other markets. To be competitive, you need to price accordingly.

Good luck and most importantly, have fun with it. Your sales and writing will always improve if what you're doing makes you smile.