Do Author Bylines on Usage Only Articles Help/Hurt Sales

[HiredGun]

If you sell usage-only articles on CC, do you include your author byline on each article?
Do you think including a byline lessens your chance of a sale (especially if purchased content is going to be used offline)?
Thoughts?

[Lysis]

Good question. I think if we took metrics from customers it would be closer to "yes." But, I don't think by a huge percentage. It depends on if it's a blogger or a real business IMO.

[dbvirago]

When I take the time to find online placement of usage only articles, they almost always have my byline, so it's never occurred to me to place it in the body of the article. Fortunately or unfortunately, most of my sales are full rights, so no byline and no 'tearsheets.'

[dbvirago]

Never occurred to me either, but I looked up my last five usage articles and none of them had my byline. Per a user on another thread, if you don't include it, the buyer doesn't have to.

[HiredGun]

Never occurred to me either, but I looked up my last five usage articles and none of them had my byline. Per a user on another thread, if you don't include it, the buyer doesn't have to.

That 'user on another thread' was me, the OP of this thread. This thread was to gauge writer feedback on whether adding their byline for attribution impacts sales. If a potential buyer wants to purchase an article and doesn't care about duplicate content online (or wishes to use the article offline), will having to include the writer's byline stop them from purchasing the piece? Will a CC writer enjoy more usage/unique sales if they don't include their byline or are they likely to only have one usage/unique sale and then no more once other potential purchasers notice the article has already been downloaded once? Personally, I'm to the point of not including a byline and not worrying over whether a purchased piece is available online in multiple places. Scrapers are posting the short/long summaries of CC pieces online (Android content, real estate content) without ever purchasing the article (Google your titles and summaries), so it seems to be a losing battle.

[Lysis]

I agree that chasing people who don't put your byline on an article is wasted effort. There isn't any money in a byline from some random blogger and chasing people who don't give a byline cuts into your profits too. wot imo

[HiredGun]

I agree that chasing people who don't put your byline on an article is wasted effort. There isn't any money in a byline from some random blogger and chasing people who don't give a byline cuts into your profits too. wot imo

Yup, definite waste of time. Time = money. Chasing down scrapers and byline cheats = time which could be better spent creating content for paying clients.

[gators18]

Think of it from a buyer's POV: Does the byline add value to them? Unless someone here that I haven't noticed is a widely renowned expert in the field, no. So no one is buying an article BECAUSE of a byline on it. Are there at least some buyers who won't want to put up someone else's byline? Almost certainly so. So bylines certainly decrease sales when talking use with one vs. use without one.

Now, is there the marketing trick of putting a byline and for only $X more they can buy full rights and delete it? Yes. Does the math of that vs. lost sales because of the byline and possible lost second usage sales work out? YMMV.

[HiredGun]

Does the math of that vs. lost sales because of the byline and possible lost second usage sales work out? YMMV.

And thus the point of this discussion.

You have to weigh the possibility that an article will only be sold once without your byline on it for a slightly reduced rate (as well as the potential for multiple usage only sales) against the potential of a full rights sale. Set usage prices the same as full rights prices and only sell your article once, or play the odds that you'll sell multiple usage only rights without a byline.

Thanks all for your feedback.