Application Process/Criteria For Writer's Pools

[Lysis]

To be honest (and strictly speaking from my own experience here), I think most of the work in the background is from a customer saying "I want this writer."

[LauraGinn]

I'm losing a lot of morale for this site. I have no idea where we stand, and today I got a heap of rejections for being "too wordy", something which I thought I had improved on a lot.

Gonna keep my distance for a few weeks I think until my mood improves... Sad times!

[Lysis]

The "too wordy" ones are frustrating!

Got like 5 of them in a row one day. I feel ya, sister. I go drown my sorrows in some wine and come back another day.

[philipanderson]

To be honest (and strictly speaking from my own experience here), I think most of the work in the background is from a customer saying "I want this writer."

That makes sense. Why wouldn't these ones just come through as a private request though? Why would clients ask for people to join writers' pools? Just curious..

[Lysis]

From my experience, the customer wants to talk to the writer in a GoToMeeting or conference call. CC sets up GoToMeetings. They're easier. Imagine trying to get a facilitator in Vancouver, a customer in Sweden and a writer in Florida together at a convenient time. It ain't easy.

[Isabelnewth]

Lysis, that sounds extremely exciting, but I doubt if it's the usual experience for people posting on here.

For myself, I got a good amount of work from writers pools last year, none at all at the beginning of this year, and picking up a bit now, but with rather depressing subject matter and pay rates! I am getting a small but useful trickle of dollars, although I have never had a private request, no wait, one, who was offering a derisory rate for the job.

But I wouldn't let a sticky patch with an editor put me off the site, and I have definitely had some.I think it does look as though sales are picking up a little bit....

[LauraGinn]

I read this article this morning, which you may find useful: http://www.searchingforthehappiness.com ... ing-money/

In the tips section is the following:

Wait to see how your first article goes before writing a second piece. There is a brief learning curve involved at CC, so there’s no point in submitting additional articles until you know your first one has been well received. Starting off solidly is important, because the easiest money on Constant Content is in Writer Pool Requests. You need to be invited to participate in these. For that to happen, you must have at least ten articles approved, and an editorial approval rate of at least 60%. One of the reasons I had quick success was because I was able to start cranking out Writer Pool articles within my first two weeks.

I knew I'd seen this information somewhere before, and this writer has the same idea. Would be useful for CC to clarify things though.

[Abbamay]

Hi Laura,

That writer (Kevin) has been on the forum. He wrote a book about how to succeed on this site after being with CC for a few months.

I don't think it's that simple, Laura, because while there have been rules about an acceptance rate and the number of articles needed before being asked to join a pool, meeting those criteria doesn't mean that you'll be invited automatically. I think it's to do with how much work is available and whether or not the editors need to ask for more writers to get the work done. The writer you quoted was lucky that at the end of last year a UK buyer had a huge amount of work for those of us in the pool, and that's why he sold so much in such a short time. Others of us remember the same buyer doing that plenty of times over the past couple of years, though the work seems to have dropped right off now. I'd be interested to see if Kevin is still making a lot of money or if most of his sales were from the writer pool at the end of last year. Hopefully he's still going strong, especially seeing as he is talking on the Internet about how to make so much money at CC.

Have a good day!

[LauraGinn]

Oh yes, it would be really interesting to see if Kevin is having the same amount of success

[Lysis]

Was that the same guy spamming the forum with his ebook or was that another one?

The big jobs are definitely not what you want to use as a benchmark. Things go up and down here. If you're an expert in a certain field, you can make great money but when trends go a different way other than your area of expertise, you'll drop down. The open pool articles will still sell. Don't take advice from anyone who hasn't been here at least a year and doesn't know the nuances of the site.

[Abbamay]

Same guy, Lysis. Haven't heard from him since.

[Lysis]

ugh... "Ask lots of questions for free on forum cuz noob. Sell ebook from answers I got for free on same forum."

Annoying.

[Kitagrl]

I've been recieving a few Writer Pool email invites, but then when I come to the site, I can't find it anywhere and it is unavailable to me. It's frustrating, because I'd rather not even get the invites if it really isn't an "invite".

[LMasterson]

From my experience, the customer wants to talk to the writer in a GoToMeeting or conference call. CC sets up GoToMeetings. They're easier. Imagine trying to get a facilitator in Vancouver, a customer in Sweden and a writer in Florida together at a convenient time. It ain't easy.

LOL! Imagine a GoToMeeting where the facilitator is in Vancouver, the client is in the UK, and the writer is in Australia. Now THAT'S a nightmare in time-zone coordination I faced a couple months ago.

[Lysis]

ha! That's tough. That's an old post of mine. Last year, I had several of those. Last one I had was in February, but I was working onsite at the time. Only reason I could do it during working hours was because I was working for the GoToMeeting people themselves. They had private rooms where you could go for an hour or two and technically no one was supposed to disturb you.

This year is much quitter here for me at CC. Finally, Elance is starting to take off for me, but I'm trying to find the time to keep those little CC sales coming in. I still love that I can come up with an idea, write it whenever and however I want, submit it and make money (maybe lol).