I've been on the site about 3 months now and I've already had 3 usage sales with just a dozen articles uploaded. I can see that CC has great potential, which is good since I'm unemployed and have plenty of time in my hands. However, I can't seem to get organized and write on a regular basis. I was wondering how you guys keep track of the work you do per day. Do you set an amount of money you're supposed to make or a number of articles you want to write? What helps you stay on track?
I've always had huge problems with structure, so it seems impossible for me to come up with a "work" schedule, but I know that I can't just write whenever I feel like it if I want my attempt on CC to be fruitful. Any advice will be deeply appreciated. I just hope I'll find my way soon!
I set a dollar figure per day. I look at how much I want to make per year and then divide that by 50 (this allows me two weeks of vacation). Once I know how much I need to make each week, I break that down into a daily figure. This has worked amazingly well since I first started doing it in 2006. Each year, I've met my annual goal almost to the number! Then, I give myself a raise each year by increasing my numbers.
I do this as a side gig, so it's not a big deal if I sell one article or a dozen in a given month. I usually try to set a goal for # of articles per month (and then break that down into how many I need to write per day). If I were doing it as a primary income source, then I would decide the minimum dollar amount you need each month and work back from there.
For example, let's say you know you need at least $500/mo as take-home pay, so you would need at least $770 in sales each month. CC boasts something like 80% sales rate, while my personal experience is a bit lower. We'll play it safe and assume an average of 60% of articles sell in a given month, so you would need to write enough articles to equal $1,280 (if 60% sold of those, you'd hit your $770 in sales). Let's assume your average article sells for $30. Then it's just $1,280/$30 = 43 articles. Your average month has around 30 days, so that comes to about 3 articles every two days (or 10 articles a week) in order to take home $500 each month. This also assumes 100% acceptance by the editors (no rejected - do not resubmit, doesn't count rejected then resubmitted and accepted).
Now if you raise your sales rate to 70% of articles written, then you only need to write 37 articles per month to hit that $500 take-home. If you both raised your sales rate to 70% and increased your average sale to $40, then you only need 28 articles per month. Figuring out your average sales and % that sell is hard in the beginning, but you can refine it as you have more sales. Also remember that while usage rights can sell multiple times, full rights will sell much more often.
Math lessons aside, my point is to figure out how much money you want/need to take home at the end of the month first and work backwards to figure out how many articles you need to write in a given day or week. I find I'm much more productive on weekdays than the weekend, so if I need to write 8 articles in a week, I'll try to write at least seven of them during the work week. It's always easier to write more than your goal and have extra sales than it is to put it off and then try to catch up to your quota later.
Thank you both for your replies. I think I get the picture now.
I started to set a -rather random- number of articles per day and thought I would figure things out from there, but I found that I would either set the bar too high or too low, so I got somewhat disappointed. I guess it makes more sense to figure out how much I want to make and break it down to a daily figure. I'll try to make a plan out of this and see how things go.
Your example was enlightening, SJ. Thank you for taking the time to elaborate.
Because I have too much time on my hands and I needed a PHP project to play with, I present to you the SJHillman Constant Content Quota Calculator based on the math in my previous post.
**Please note that the current version rounds off your quota to the nearest tenth of an article. Looking for a simple way to always round up numbers (IE: 34.1 should be rounded to 35)**
**Also note that nothing else on tools.sjhillman.com is working except for the roommate calculator and the ZIP code lookup**
I'll be adding to it over the weekend. Will accept any and all critcism
Haha! I do lots of .1 articles too! For some wicked reason it always seems easier to just start a new one, so most of them end up residing on my computer permanently. No way I'm going to delete anything - what if that moment of clarity suddenly strikes and I finally attempt to finish them?
I aim for a take-home minimum pay of $300/week, but CC isn't the only site I work for, so I have to do a balancing act between different sites to make sure I hit that figure. I try to organize the amount of time I'm spending on writing so that I make at least minimum wage (which I think converts to about $10/hour). Targets are useful - they give you motivation to keep going and let you know when it's okay to take a break.
topquark wrote:I aim for a take-home minimum pay of $300/week, but CC isn't the only site I work for, so I have to do a balancing act between different sites to make sure I hit that figure. I try to organize the amount of time I'm spending on writing so that I make at least minimum wage (which I think converts to about $10/hour). Targets are useful - they give you motivation to keep going and let you know when it's okay to take a break.
Thank you for your reply. My computer found it a jolly good time to crash, so I didn't have the chance to test setting a target. I will now, though. $300 sounds somewhat unrealistic for me right now, but I guess I won't know what the potential is unless I give it a serious try!
