To Authors

[ChrisB]

Write Longer Articles.

I can tell you that short articles are useless to me. I can see them being useful to a magazine or to a newspaper that simply needs to fill space, but most of your business here is from content website owners and so that doesn't apply.

Also it is not possible to buy more than one article and combine them unless you buy full rights as no other licensing permits editing and undoubtedly editing would be necessary in such a case.

In my opinion the value of an article goes up exponentially with each additional page. So the longer the article, the more I'm willing to pay for it. I'd pay far more for a 5 page in depth article than 5 1 page brief overview articles.

[mattsterrr]

Thanks for the guide, although presumably if you're requesting content then you'll state what length article you're after?

Personally speaking I wouldn't read 5 pages of website content when I visited a site. Not even if it was something I was interested in, and according to the clients I do work for I'm not the only one.

Surfers are lazy animals with miniscule attention spans, so unless you have a site with some in depth technical content (in which case aren't you actually looking for technical articles and not true website content?), you'd be better getting a message across in a short and snappy 500-600 (1 page) words instead of beefing it up to contain 2500-3000 (5 pages) words. If I wanted that, I'd read a Stephen King short story.

Plus, of course, writers would begin to price themselves out of the market. You may be willing to pay hundreds of dollars for 5 pages of content, but is anyone else? Many webmasters looking for content for new sites simply don't have that kind of payroll to be dishing out and dedicating that much toil and sweat to an article becomes disheartening when you fail to sell it after two weeks, but produce 5 shorter articles and there's a good chance you'll sell one or two; the pain becomes more bearable when you can afford hard liquor to numb the pain.

I think many of my messages on this forum prove this point perfectly. Even I give up reading them, if not writing them, before I reach the e....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[L. E. Gant]

Chris: 5 pages is about 2000 words, or about 9 to 12 minutes reading (6 to 8 minutes in printed format). There's few sites that attract readers willing to spend that much time on an article . Most web surfers want the gist, and in preferably under 4 minutes, as little as 2 minutes. That suggests a limit of about 400-500 words for the shorter time,and 800-1000 words for the longer time.

So, since most of us write on speculation, I think you'll usually find the bulk are under-1000 words.

Having said that, I find that I can sell 8 to 10 500-800 word articles in about the same time as I can sell one 2000 word article. So, if the shorties get, say, $30 each, a 2000 word one would run at around $300

[constant-content]

Chris is a well known and successful website owner, he owns many successful websites. Large articles serve a better purpose for search engines as well as readers.

With that said... writers can chat with the customers via the requests board.. A requester can always ask to increase the size of an article after the fact. They also can see how many times a particular requester has purchased an article, so this should be more incentive.

[mattsterrr]

I'm not doubting he's a succesful website owner, but I know that I personally would head straight for the x if I saw a page with 3000 words of rambling nonsense on. And, even if it isn't rambling nonsense, I'd automatically assume it is. I'm not a succesful website owner, but I am a typical website surfer.

When I last looked in the requested content section, at least 90% of the requests were for articles less than 700 words. As a writer trying to sell content on here, I want to write articles that appeal to as many potential buyers as possible; by writing a 2000 word article, using the requested content section as a guide I would suggest I've just limited my potential market to 10% of what it would have been with a 500 word article.

I would never dream of suggesting a website owner is doing something wrong, I've no doubt it works for you but what I'm saying is that personally speaking and to many other surfers we don't want to open a page that's like a bottomless well. Quite frankly, I can't be arsed reading more than a thousand words in one internet sitting. It's a fact that it can take up to four times longer to read content on a website than on traditional paper print and it's a fact that surfers want information fast.

My advice to writers is not to suddenly start trying to sell 2000 word articles. If you're comfortable doing 500, keep doing them and you'll retain the most potential buyers.

[mattsterrr]

Ok, I'm not trying to jump on you Chris, but I'm pointing out that while 2000 word articles are what you're after they're not what most people on this site are looking for.

There are 10 requests on site at the moment (2 of which are yours). They are:

2 articles @ 1000-2000 CHRIS
50 @ 250-300
Ongoing (Assumed 10) @ 600-750
1 @500+ (Assumed 500-750)
Unlimited (Assumed 10) @500-2000
As Many As Poss (Assumed 10) @250+ (Assumed 250-400)
10 @ 500 (Assumed 500-750)
10 @ 1000 (Assumed 1000-2000) CHRIS
20 @ 500 (Assumed 500 -750)
10 @ 400-600

Including your own requests which, as you can see, are unusually high that gives an average request of:

432-712 words (Average 572 words per article)

And excluding your requests:

376-626 words (Average 501 words per article)

Anyway, you obviously buy a lot of articles on here and pay a more than reasonable rate and for that you have to be applauded and thanked but if you request 1 article and only 10 writers write a 2000 word article for you, that leaves 9 people with articles they want to sell for $200 that they are seemingly unlikely to sell unless you decide you want more. Unfortunately, I don't have the figures for purchased content so I couldn't tell you if this is just commonplace for requested content.

[mattsterrr]

Chris (CC Chris).

Why don't you send information like this to writers on a weekly basis, so they know what there best chances are of success on the site. Presumably not all 600 writers write purely for the requested content.

If you need a sad mathemtician to work out the figures, you know where I am.

[LJade]

I think we should put this dialogue up for sale...it was really getting interesting!

[thomask]

I never gave much thought to the length of the articles I wanted, and when I got a shorter one, (400 words) I thought I was getting ripped off...

HOWEVER, having purchased full rights to it, I decided I might as well format it for my use ( a printed and an online newsletter ), so it worked out, as I wanted quick, easy to format articles for both me to lay out, and my potential customers to read.

Why are horrorscopes so successful? Its just a quick blurb.

Why are the funnies in the saturday or sunday paper so much more 'popular' over 'comics' ? they are quick blurbs...

I tend to read smaller news articles first, then go to the ones more indepth if I have the tolerance for whats being discussed...

It comes down to if you want more, ask for it. I am sure the writers would be happy to make you happy.

Thomas
p.s. a couple writers here have made me very happy with their work, in my price range, others, the work I like, but its out of the price range that I requested..

[Annetta Holmes]

Hi ChrisB

Are you still interested in large articles? I prefer to write 3000 to 5000 words particularly on specialized subjects.
If you are still interested can you give some specs?

Regards
Annetta