Constant Content

I'm quite new to this site and am not sure how everything works. I have a few photographs submitted, and am comfortable with that aspect, but the concept of how to submit articles is a little lost to me. There are several public requests that I could easily write an article for, but I have a couple questions on them. Does it work as a "first come, first serve" basis in that whoever writes the article and submits it first gets paid for it, (depending if the customer likes it, of course), or does the customer need to be contacted and told "I will be writing this article for you"? Any help with this question, or other tips would be most appreciated. Thanks!

No need to contact the customer. If you choose the "this is for a public request" option and then specify which request the article is for in the Article Submission form, the article will be automatically offered to the customer once it has been approved. The customer receives all articles submitted for his or her request and then chooses from these (or chooses none). Note that even if that customer does not choose your article, it is very likely that the article will sell at some point, even if it is days, weeks, months, or even years later. This has happened to me and to many other CC authors repeatedly.

Ok, thanks. So what is the "contact customer" for? Questions related to the content of the article?

The only time I have ever contacted a customer was to ask for clarification. Sometimes a request description is vague, ambiguous, or even contradictory. Otherwise, I just submit my piece and let the chips fall where they may.

Contact customer should most often be reserved for discussing private requests.