Constant Content

Kdc, a.k.a. newbie here.

Whew! After scouring every corner of CC for guidelines and requirements, I finally landed here at 'The Forum'. I decided to save it for last, then pop over and squeeze out every last bit of advice I could find. Can you tell I'm just a bit nervous? Lol.

I'm relieved to see how helpful and kind the CC's staff and fellow writers are; especially after reading the online reviews and comments (which did not help my anxiety), as most were negative towards the editors here. After reading the site and forums here, I disagree. CC (staff/editors) couldn't be more clear about it's expectations, and the site seems to bend over backwards to give you all the tools and support you would need to submit properly, and succeed.

I am, however, a little (okay a LOT) nervous about the comments in which people say they've been terminated with no good explanation. Yikes! But, then again, I've been pretty shocked at what I've seen people post - or better, slap up - on creative writing sites. I'm crossing my fingers that this is the real explanation - people expecting CC to edit their any errors for them - instead of doing the work themselves.

Some of the negative comments surprised me; such as the ones referring to the CC editors being "too controlling", "too opinionated", or acting as though they were [your/our] boss.
Umm, yeah…this is a job, they are our bosses. They've hired/commissioned us to write for them and their clients, and have the right to stipulate expected guidelines…and to decide who fits those guidelines.

STILL…I'm SCARED!!

I have a couple questions:

If I insert a quote, will the CC system check flag me for unoriginal content?

This is my first attempt at this type of writing/site…this is the first time I've seen/heard the term SEO, so researched what it is (Search Engine Optimization). I took it as the utilization of certain keywords in certain (or all??) articles to optimize the clients chances of popping up at the top in a search. Does that make sense? Is that right?

How does this apply to my writing? How do I know when/how to apply it?
It seems there has been a big change in how it's used. How does that affect CC, and our writing?

Thank you so much for being here. What a relief. I feel like a big sissy!

kdc

Should I re-post this (my questions) to another area, or contact the staff directly?

kdc

Hi Kdc, welcome to the forums! CC is a wonderful site to write for and what I've been able to do here has far exceeded my wildest expectations. If you're willing to put in the work then you can definitely do great on here! Sounds like you're off on the right foot I can't say I put your level of effort into combing the site and reading the guidelines before I got started! So you've already got a huge leg up on people who don't know what's expected.

As for some of your questions...

kdc wrote: If I insert a quote, will the CC system check flag me for unoriginal content?

I don't want to risk steering you wrong on this, but in my personal experience I have used quotes from time to time (never anything too lengthy), and not had a problem. Just make it clear that it's a quote and I'm sure whoever is editing will be rational enough to realize it!

kdc wrote: This is my first attempt at this type of writing/site…this is the first time I've seen/heard the term SEO, so researched what it is (Search Engine Optimization). I took it as the utilization of certain keywords in certain (or all??) articles to optimize the clients chances of popping up at the top in a search. Does that make sense? Is that right?

How does this apply to my writing? How do I know when/how to apply it?
It seems there has been a big change in how it's used. How does that affect CC, and our writing?

As far as I know you are right on SEO. Honestly I always had a vague idea of what it was but gave it no thought to my first year here (when I wasn't writing very much at all). Then when I started picking up requests that had requested keywords I just kind of got the hang of it as I went along. Clients will usually be pretty specific about how many times they want words/phrases used. Google's algorithm allows you a little bit of leeway to be creative so that you're not just repeating the same phrase over and over. In my opinion it's not that hard or big of a deal to do You kind of get the hang of it after a while.

Knowing when/how to apply it to your catalog articles is up to you. You want to keep the wording as natural as possible but try to think what sorts of google searches might be common for the topic you are writing about. I like to use subheadings in articles which could be an often-googled phrase, stuff like that!

evaku, thank you so much for your warm welcome, and your advice! I was starting to see tumbleweeds

I'm happy to hear that you're doing well on this site (and with your writing in general). I just submitted my first article yesterday!

Again, thank you for your time.

kdc

You're welcome!

Yeah it can get a little quite around here but we do have some regulars on the forums

Good luck with your first submission! In my opinion the key to this site is consistency. If your first few submissions go well and you have the time to devote to this, then just go full steam ahead, show them that you can write consistently and write well, and before too long you could get involved in one of the several projects going on around here!

Anyway, one thing at a time! I hope your first article goes well but don't get discouraged if you run into some minor issues. Once you get used to it the whole process will go much faster!

Hi - I'm pretty new (joined late December) so I will share my experience/advice.

When I joined I submitted three articles, all of which were accepted. Buoyed with my sense of acceptance, I went on to write another five, submitted over three days. The first two came back to me, with some fairly significant style issues. What I should have done at that stage was take the other three down and reviewed them. I didn't and they were then quickly rejected, but this time with a fairly stern 'don't bother resubmitting' message.

Although I've been writing content for several years, the editorial process here is stricter and a couple of my bad habits were exposed. I wasn't great at using commas the right way, and I had some clumsy style problems. I approached the editorial feedback simply as an opportunity to improve and focused on all the points raised. My subsequent acceptance rate then improved massively.

I'm now forty articles in and generally get accepted first time (or second time, after I continue to make the odd stupid, annoying mistake). This will never be my full-time occupation, so my rate of submission is probably far lower than many others. But I will have days when I submit 2 or 3 and don't have any issues with this now.

For me, therefore, I would advise new members to submit their first 5 articles 1 at a time so that you only have one waiting to be reviewed at any one time. Once you have cleared five, I think you stand a good chance of getting into your groove because bad habits will hopefully have been ironed out.

I am not sure that Constant Content is short of good writers, so the onus is kind of on you to prove that your content is worth accepting. Those first rejections can be a bit of a shock, but it's what you do next that will define whether you succeed here. I'm quite happy now that I have a good grasp of what CC is looking for but I think there is a risk early days that you could get yourself suspended so I suggest a cautious approach.

Cheers