Constant Content

I get the impression from snooping around the site that it's important to build a catalog of articles on disparate subjects to give searching customers a large target to shoot at. Does this seem like an accurate assessment? Do you shoot for a certain number of articles "in stock", as it were, or just write constantly? I've got far more ideas for content than I have time to devote, but there's a part of me that wants to avoid putting too much effort into writing articles that will never sell...

Thanks for your thoughts!

jstevewhite

Everyone is different in this regard, but I personally think it does help to have a large inventory of articles available. When I first started I tended to answer as many of the requests as I could, and I was often disappointed when they did not sell to the customers who requested them. Over time, however, I have found that many of those articles have sold. You will see a number of categories that seem to come up all the time (financial articles, real estate, weddings, pets, etc.) If you can write to those subjects chances are the articles will sell eventually even if they are not snapped up right away.

I'm sure everyone will have their own opinions on this subject; this is just what has worked for me.

Bonnie

If you don't have articles posted, you can't sell them...

There's nothing wrong with posting as many articles as you want.

As far as ratios, for me, I sell about 25% of articles I dream up on my own, and about 50% of those written for public requests within the early period of posting (first few weeks or so). Those ratios go up as time goes by and the unsold articles become sold articles.

My sales are about 25% of articles at the moment. It has been higher than that, but I didn't sell anything in May, which was the first month without pay since my sales began. It took a while before I sold anything when I started, perhaps my sporadic submissions contributed to that. As soon as I had one sale, they kept coming. This encouraged me and I began submitting regularly, so that I do have a stock.

I don't trust the statistics on the authors' profile pages. Mine are wrong so I suspect others will be too. But I don't think this matters if they are in the author's favour. More sales encourages more sales when customers look.

I agree with Bonnie that it does help to have an inventory of articles. It's nice to have something to post immediately for a public request if I already have something written. Plus, when I have no time to write, I still have articles to sell and I usually do get a few sales from my stock. Hence, my reasoning for viewing it as a positive.

I didn't actually plan to have spare articles, it kind of happened last summer when sales were slow and the competition heated up and I ended having a real slump in sales. After the first shock of winding up on the most prolific list, I tried not to let it bother me anymore.

As far as ratios, if I count only my unique and full rights, then I have sold 72% of what I have written for this site. Counting all licenses, it goes up to 83%. It took a while to get to that point, so just keep writing. You seem to be off to a good start. I don't look at my ratios until someone asks. To me the important strategy is to just keep submitting good work.

Some customers might visit the site daily, others weekly, and still others once in a blue moon. You never know when someone is going to be in need of a specific topic, so it is nice if you already have something posted. This isn't a viable idea for everyone though, since we all have a variety of commitments. Plus, it takes months to become fully established.

If you write it, they will buy it.

I dabbled writing here in November and December of last year, and started writing seriously in the middle of January. I have about a 68% rating of sold vs unsold articles of my total inventory, and that inventory if I had to guess is about 50% public requests answers, 35% my own ideas, and 15% private requests.

The bottom line for Constant Content I think is well written articles sell.... eventually. I literally had an article on draperies sell the very day I was thinking about taking it off this site and placing in a lower market since it sat for 3 months.

Another advantage to writing quite a few articles in a variety of topics is it draws private requests. I wrote a piece of Home Equity Lines of Credit for a public request that never panned out. 2 weeks later, it was bought by a different client. 2 months later he sends me a private request asking for a piece on Private Mortgage Insurance.

It can be frustrating for new authors to see articles sit, and this market is not like other web writing venues where the site itself is buying your work. This is more like articles on consignment, an art gallery of articles if you will.

Just keep writing well. and you will sell, sell, SELL

LOL

Always Smiling,
Elizabeth Ann West

Wow, thanks for all the feedback! Great information. You people rock.

So another question - how many articles do you write on an average day? Just curious.

Thanks again!

Steve

Yikes, that varies. I shoot for a dollar figure each day rather than an arcticle count. For example, so far this week, my submissions have been low but my dollar figure is close to being where I want it to be. (Of course it doesn't hurt that I'm working on a large project which will be submitted soon.)

Let's put it another way, this week, I'm up to about 20,000 words. Last week, I subbed about 28K words. I shoot for about 5,000 words a day.

Wow. That's, like, a medium-sized book every five weeks. Writing is your sole income, right?

Yes. I quit my day job a year and a half ago. Of course, my husband has a good job...

Heeh... my wife quit her day job 9 years ago. Of course, her husband has a good job... LOL