Constant Content

I just had my first non-requested article published here: http://www.constant-content.com/MoreDet ... siness.htm

It's a 1200 word article with relatively in-depth research. I priced it at $35 for a usage license and $100 for a full license. Is this too much? I haven't yet sold any licenses. Does that make any difference? Also, what ratio do you use of the cost of a usage license versus the cost of a full license? I thought that 1:3 would be about right but wasn't sure.

$100 sounds fairly reasonable for an in-depth article of that length if it is a popular topic (I haven't followed your link yet, so am not sure what it is about.) However, if you notice over time that you aren't receiving many hits, you may consider lowering it a bit. Remember also that CC takes a 35% cut, so that should be figured in. As far as usage licenses, I personally prefer to ask about the same as the full rights. For example, I will ask $30 (usage), $35 (unique), and $40 (full), but it also depends upon the individual article. Each author is different though, and prices at different rates. I have been submitting on here for a few months and am still playing around a bit with pricing. Eventually I guess we all find that place that is just right for us! Good luck!

So you don't want to sell usage licenses? Is that why you price usage at the same as full? And what is your opinion on unique licenses? I haven't put a unique price on any of my articles.

When you submit an article, there is a link to suggested/sample prices next to the boxes where you enter the prices for the article. I sometimes use them for reference.

I currently am not as concerned about selling usage licenses, though I may be at a later time. Some on here do want the byline, while others don't care as much. Again, it also depends upon the article and how "attached" I am to it. Strangely though, you will find clients who will buy the usage instead of the full even though there is only a matter of a few dollars difference. I have sold 2 articles at usage this way (1 of them twice)--there was only a matter of $5-$10 difference! As I mentioned, I am still playing around with prices. I did find it kind of nice to be able to sell the first one that sold for usage a second time in the same month! I have also found it helpful to explore some of the other author's profile pages and see what others are doing. Some do as I do, while others ask much less for a usage license. There are even some who ask the same for usage and full.

Concerning unique license rights, very few are purchased. I will go ahead and throw a price in there just in case. If you are concerned with bylines, you are supposed to get a byline with unique rights, but the article cannot be resold and disappears from your profile.

I follow the advice Celeste gave awhile back - base your price on what you want to make per hour. It always works. So if $100 gives you a fair per hour rate, then stick with that asking price. If it doesn't sell in a few years time, you could always rewrite the article, breaking it up into smaller articles - you might actually make more money that way.

When I'm pricing articles, I put the same price for unique and full rights. If an article sells for unique, I can't sell that article again. Since I won't have another chance to make a profit off the article, I ask top dollar for it. It's rarely an issue, though, since most customers here prefer either full or usage rights. For usage, I divide my full rights price by two in the hopes that the article will sell twice - I'd come out with the same profit as if I had sold it for full. If it only sells once, at least I still own the article - I can post it somewhere else for a profit.

Thanks for the advice everybody! I'll try some of that. So, what do you do if your article is time-sensitive? The article to which I am referring is concerned with immediate Apple news, especially about the recent WWDC, so will be essentially worthless in 6-12 months time. Is this the wrong place to sell an article like that?

It depends..... time-sensitive for the "year" as I call it sells here sometimes. For example, when Apple iPad came out, a number of iPad articles sold. Likewise, the digital TV conversion was a huge seller in its time. I also sold an article on the Blu-Ray vs. HD formats the day it came out that Toshiba and Microsoft would no longer manufacture HD format DVDs.

I think the better measuring stick is "buzz." How long will people be buzzing about this? Technology is constantly changing, yet there is a strong market for people reading older content because they have a relevant question or issue. Then there are always the late adopters. Blackberry has been out how long, yet my hubby and I just bought ours in September. So I do occasionally read articles from when the Blackberry Storm first came out, as I have the original (it was heavily discounted since Storm 2 came out 3 weeks later).

How long will Michael Jackson articles sell? Probably forever, eventually. Web content writing is like a beat all by itself, you can make quick money here and in other writing forums if you can find the right "buzz" to write about.