$1 for an Article???

[EricScott]

Does anyone else find it a little disheartening to see a lot of $1 and $2 sales on the recently sold page? I understand this is for usage rights and maybe the authors already made some good money off the articles. But seriously... $1 for an article? I really think this cheapens the site and makes it harder for the rest of us to sell articles at a fair price. I would love to see minimum price limits on CC.

[Celeste Stewart]

What's really sad is this guy has sold 31 articles for a grand total of $51 before the CC cut - $33 lifetime earnings. He's the one losing out, not those of us who understand the CC system.

I agree that a minimum price would be nice.

[ecdoran]

I second the minimum price idea. Even the 5 and 7 dollar articles get to me sometimes. It makes me second guess my own work and the value of my articles and I find myself lowering the prices. I think, also, when a customer sees one article for a certain price, it makes the more expensive articles automatically seem overpriced and probably makes them less likely to purchase content. Pricing is stressful to me.

[Debbi]

Pricing is a stressful issue. I struggle with it constantly. I sold an articles once for $5 (mostly to put it out of its misery) and I've sold an article for $120. They weren't that different really, so it was more my lack of confidence that the first one would sell eventually than it was the quality.

I also fret at those $5, $7, and even $10 article prices. Perhaps those authors are just trying to build up their sales figures on their profile, or maybe they are financially well-off and just want a little pocket change or to get their name out there, or who knows? I feel that it does make the reasonably-priced articles appear over-priced to the consumer. How would a minimum price work? Like you can't charge less than $15 for any article or you can't charge less than 5 cents a word? Since we can change the prices whenever we want to, it would be difficult to enforce.

That reminds me..I once saw an article sell for 25 cents. Probably it was a revision. The customers don't get to see the Recently Sold page, do they? So they can only judge pricing from what they see in the article descriptions.

[jennifer]

I saw a useage rights article sell for 20c a few weeks ago! That's just ridiculous.

And what about the requester a week or so ago who wanted a 10,000 word article for $20??

[jadedragon]

I just threw up a very short article for $10 because it is short and I want to build my sales figures. But seriously, if you are only going to charge a buck, why not give it away? Or put it on Xomba and hope for ad revenue.

[audrabianca]

regarding 20 cents. Sometimes things aren't always what they seem. I needed to purchase a copy of my original article, and I no longer had the computer file. It was for researching possible theft of my work.

[ecdoran]

I just threw up a very short article for $10 because it is short and I want to build my sales figures. But seriously, if you are only going to charge a buck, why not give it away? Or put it on Xomba and hope for ad revenue.

I have no problem with short articles being a small amount of money. It took fifteen minutes and is short? By all means, sell it for $10. It's the 700, 800 word articles that I know took effort that sell for just a few dollars that make me nervous. I can't write 800 words, edit, and fact check in 15 minutes.

Maybe there could be 'bargain' category for all things less than 10 dollars just to separate them from the more standard-priced articles I don't know if I want to force people to price their articles a certain way, but I want customers to know that 800-1000 word articles for 15-20 is not the norm.

[Elizabeth Ann West]

I'm guilty, I have a single $1 article. But it's about "How to Help Others in a Natural Disaster" and lists major organizations that help in international crises. But it is priced that way on purpose, because we can't give stuff away here for free, and I didn't want to be making a profit off of that topic. I wrote it not long after the Haiti earthquake. I've given at my church, but I thought if I wrote an educational piece to help educate others about where they can help/volunteer/or donate, then I would be doing even more good. Guess what? It hasn't sold, not even for a $1.

[Celeste Stewart]

It's just as hard to sell a cheap article, isn't it?

[Goalsethigh]

I'm confused. I thought I read somewhere on here that five dollars was the minimum. As far as going cheap, I am taking best offers until I sell my five and can do private requests. It is less than the article deserves, but I have an ulterior motive.

[J. A. Young]

The $5 minimum refers to what we have to earn in order to get paid for the month.

[jadedragon]

I don't have those 5 sales yet either (shame on me) but there are two ways to get more sales:

1. Lower Prices (may or may not work)
2. More Inventory covering various topics (you make more this way).

I'm going for more inventory.

[Elizabeth Ann West]

There is a 5 sale requirement now to submit to private requests? That seems odd, since you could have 5 accepted articles and a buyer could see your writing ability but need something slightly different. I think I had my first private request off like my second or third sale, all for health and beauty articles at $20 a piece. Could someone link to the guideline section where it states there is now a 5 sale requirement?

[Antonia]

I believe the 5 sale requirement applies to public requests, not to private requests. And I think it's that you have to have 5 articles reviewed, not sold.

I just spent several minutes searching the forums and can't find the thread, though, so maybe someone else can verify this.