Constant Content

Just throwing these out there....

1. The "Auto-Capitalize" option is automatically checked when submitting articles. I recently submitted one that used the word "a" after a colon, and it removed the capital A and replaced it with a lower-case one. I actually hope it gets reviewed and returned, because I didn't notice it immediately and did not want to resubmit due to the editorial times. (It was for a public request.)

It might be too difficult to do it, but it sure would be nice if there were a way to edit our titles and/or teach the auto-cap function to recognize exceptions.

2. Some articles can easily be presented under multiple categories. For instance, I submitted an article on how parents can purchase multi-family properties to subsidize their child's college education expenses. This could be presented under "Real Estate," "Colleges & Universities," and "Education." If there were an option to check multiple categories, the same article could get exposure to more buyers, and CC's catalog would be better targeted for its customers. (More moola, if ya know what I'm sayin'!)

Why not just add those categories to your in-house keyword list. I think the majority of CC searchers use the search button with the word related to their needs.

Something I'd like to see is a search within profiles. If, for example, a writer brands herself as an authority on a topic, uses social media to self-promote etc., buyers click on a link to her CC profile, but have to weed through her catalog to find titles on her niche topic. The buyer then goes to the top of the page and ends up searching through those articles written by everyone here -- hardly fair to the writer who did the work to bring the customer into CC.

I'd also like to see this scenario. The buyer goes to the "find writer" page, finds all the top writers in a particular category, clicks on their names and all their titles in that category come up. It seems like it's missing a follow-through.

I've made these suggestions before, but I'm hoping eventually I'll hear something.

Few people come to the forums these days, so I feel like I may be the only one who sees this as an issue.

I'm not entirely sure if I understand what you're saying, but if I do, then the reason I wouldn't add those words to my author profile keywords is that I write on many topics, including some that I may not write about regularly.

Your post did make me look up the search function in more detail. Using the article I posted as a way to check it out, I discovered that the article I submitted came up using various keywords. The search function didn't return author names and profiles under the general search function, so that is a separate database that's only accessed when you search for a writer with expertise in a specific area, I suppose.

However, buyers may miss some great articles for their needs if they browse by category. Because the page lists categories in the left column, anyone who clicks on those to peruse the material in that category may miss a great article that's placed elsewhere because it touched on multiple categories. Depending on how the article files are stored, it might be a complex matter of allowing multiple categories, but then again, I'm no expert on coding and perhaps it's a simple matter. That's why I said I was just throwing it into the mix.

I think that your suggestion would be a nice touch to let buyers find writers geared for their chosen topics, but I find myself wondering if that would be more trouble than benefit. A lot of authors don't seem to have a lot of articles available, and buyers can find preferred authors easily simply by purchasing one or two articles that they found in a search.

While there aren't a lot of people visiting the forums, I have noticed that on significant topics, CC frequently chimes in, so I feel confident that if a suggestion is deemed to be valuable to CC's mission, they'll address it, but they don't want to invest too much time in addressing dozens of suggestions they will never implement.

I wouldn't say that few people come to the forums. Sometimes you read, but do not post if you don't have anything significant to contribute. I do a lot more reading than posting.

Sometimes you're all over the forums for a spell, and then away for a spell, and then come back and catch up. I am guilty of the latter

I pop in on a regular basis, but at my level of CC experience I seldom have wisdom to offer. Lol.

eta: Seriously, the spam is annoying and may be contributing to lack of activity in the forums.

Lor wrote:Something I'd like to see is a search within profiles. If, for example, a writer brands herself as an authority on a topic, uses social media to self-promote etc., buyers click on a link to her CC profile, but have to weed through her catalog to find titles on her niche topic. The buyer then goes to the top of the page and ends up searching through those articles written by everyone here -- hardly fair to the writer who did the work to bring the customer into CC.

I'd also like to see this scenario. The buyer goes to the "find writer" page, finds all the top writers in a particular category, clicks on their names and all their titles in that category come up. It seems like it's missing a follow-through.

Lor - that is a great idea, and makes absolute sense. A customer may like a particular writer's style and might like to 'home in' immediately on what they have in stock in a particular category, instead of trawling through page after page of irrelevant stuff.

Another function I wish worked better is the 'featured articles' on the author profile page. For example, I would like to be able to highlight the Christmas articles I wrote last year and have them on the front page of my profile for the next few weeks. The 'featured article' function never does what I want it to do!

(Just little gripes - obviously the key is to write lots of articles and not worry too much about whether customers can find them or not )