Constant Content

Last night I submitted an article for a public request. It was accepted this morning (Ed's great!), but now I see that the request was closed as of sometime today, much earlier than originally scheduled. Will my article still remain hidden for 3 days?

(May I just say that I feel somewhere between and . This was not a topic I would normally have chosen, and getting the thing written was a drag. I just hope someone, somewhere will be interested in it one day.)

A couple of months ago I wrote an article about breeding plecos that didn't sell for the original request, but today I found that it had sold. I know nothing about fish and had to do a lot of research and didn't think it would ever sell. I almost took it off the site since I didn't really like how it turned out but I was too lazy. It didn't sell for much but at least it sold! So don't worry, your article will probably sell sometime. It's happened to me twice now.

Heh, I just took a look at the Requested Content page and noticed there was a Fish Breeding request there. And for more money that I was asking. Oh, well... My comment still stands

And I notice the $10-$20 requests now seem to be in the minority since the "default" change! Still about a third but it sure feels like there are many more higher value requests to me than in the past.

I've never even heard of plecos, so I feel much more optimistic. My article is about something far less esoteric. I'm still pretty new here, but I've learned from the forums to write with the attitude that "If you write it, they will come." So far, though, I've only sold one article that wasn't bought by a requester. But I only have five articles available right now, so I suppose it's too soon to draw any conclusions.

Another question, and I know this has been discussed before. I have one article that is getting hits, but not selling yet. I've dropped the price a tad, but at what point do you conclude that an article isn't selling because it's priced too high? Do you find that articles getting hits tend to sell after a price drop, or does that seem not to make a difference?

Ruth

I wouldn't worry too much about the number of hits your article gets. Don't forget, a lot of authors - myself included - check out the articles up on the site, so some of those hits come from fellow authors. Some most likely come from curious buyers who are just browsing. Just because an article has a lot of hits doesn't mean it's overpriced. I've had articles sell after 150 hits. So if I were you, I wouldn't go dropping my prices too much. It's probably just a case of the right buyer not coming along yet. With CC, patience really is a virtue.

If you're worried about your pricing, check out other articles in the same category as yours. If your article is priced extremely higher or lower than the others, you might want to adjust your prices.

Customers don't know your before and after prices either, so if you discount an article, a new customer won't know it's a bargain compared to before. Shoot, you might even up the price and see what happens. Have you tried tweaking the keywords? The category? The short summary? Try a few tweaks, set the prices at a realistic rate, and then let them simmer while you write some new ones.

If you're on Twitter or marketing your articles in some other venue, tweet about the discount or make a "limited time offer." I did that on Cyber Monday and made a sale on a time sensitive article. It was a lark but it worked for me.

I didn't actually mean customers would be attracted to the article because of the discount, I meant the article would be more attractive at a lower price than a higher price -- just because the price is good, not because it's lower than it was before. Actually, I just remembered I Best Offered the article -- so looks like it's the article itself that isn't catching anyone's eye, not the price. Oh well.

About your suggestion, which is a great one, I really don't have an online presence anywhere. My portfolio is so small right now I don't see a point in publicizing myself yet. It would be like saying "Come to my clothing store!" and when people get there they find one scarf, one size 6 dress in green, a pair of blue boots in size 7, and a purple hat. Who'd come back?

I wrote 5 articles on that Year of Trees/Tu Bishvat request but none sold yet - maybe they will sell next year?
I also put up an article on a slightly off the wall topic I had researched for another piece. The darn thing sold immediately for usage.
A big article library and reasonable prices is the key on CC. So I better get back to building the library.