Constant Content

Hi, I'm sick of doing SEO for a living and looking to pay my rent by writing. At least this month.

And, I'm still trying to fully understand the licensing for articles. I've read the information here: http://www.constant-content.com/about/w ... torial.htm
and I need a bit of clarification. I think I get this, but

It seems to me that if you sell the article for any ONE of those licenses, you cannot sell it for any other license. So, if you sell an article for a "usage" license, you can ONLY sell it for a "usage" license AND if it is sold for a "usage" license, then that is the only time you could potentially sell the article more than once...Am I correct in that thinking?

It seems that once you sell it for usage, nobody would be able to buy it for full rights or unique because it has already been "used" somewhere else.

Also, can someone tell me when anyone would ever want to use an article JUST for a "usage" license? Again, I come from the world of SEO, so I can't think of one instance when people would want content that may not be unique.

Regarding bylines, the FAQ's say that you cannot put in links in your byline, so I'm unsure how you can "promote" yourself" with a byline. Can someone point me to a "good" byline?

Thank you

Hi Nicole,

You are correct. Once you sell an article for a full rights or unique licence, it cannot sell again. Only articles that originally sell for a usage licence can sell again. Once an article sells for usage, the options for a full rights or unique licence no longer show to the customers. Some customers do like usage articles, and I have sold some articles several times to different customers. However, I would say that the majority of customers do prefer full rights licences. Some people buy articles for magazines as well for website content. If you are publishing an article in a magazine or in an enewsletter to your database and not on your website, you may not care if it is published elsewhere on the web. Other people will buy an article for usage if they are the first customer and hope that no-one else purchases the article while it is still on their website.

As for your byline, this is not where you promote yourself. You should not include any information about yourself, such as bio, as an author in your article. Your byline is simply that (a "by" line) - not a promotional tool. My byline is "By Hayley Hunkin". That's it! You can include your bio information in your author profile on this site.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Hayley

As I understand, the byline *is* a promotional tool in that it gets your name "out there"...yes?

A byline is literally a line on an article that says who it is by - you will notice bylines in your daily newspapers. A headline, then the byline - by Fred Reporter.

On a CC submission, the byline is usually placed at the bottom of the full text - by so and so 2011 - the year states when it was written. This should be kept s simple as that, as it may or may not be used by the purchaser of full rights - some do, some don't. If it is used, on the website by the purchaser, then it can be seen as promotional, because it lets people know who wrote the article, and they can Google the name to find out more. I've had many usage purchases and all were given a byline (if you Google yourself you can usually find your purchased articles) and many full rights articles were given bylines as well.

So, on your CC submission it should be just your name (the year date is optional but I like it because it lets the buyer know the material is fresh) and it should be your professional name so that if someone Googles it they are taken to your website or your other CC articles.

Hope that helps clarify.

I always put:

My Article Title
By Jade Dragon (actually I use my real name)

My first paragraph and I don't include a date because that makes it not appear like fresh / evergreen content. The article looks old the day after you submit it.

Here is an article I wrote that goes more in depth on copyright and selling different types of rights