Article Rejected for Being Shorter Than 400 Words

[EmilyNorth]

I emailed Support about this, but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask here, too.

An article I submitted was rejected with the comment, "The minimum length for an article is approximately 400 words of useful information for the reader."

My questions are:

1) Constant Content's own price sheet for writers begins at 300 words. Why is 300 words on the price list if anything under 400 words is going to be rejected?
http://www.constant-content.com/about/pricesheet.php

2) Is this 400-word minimum length specified in writing someplace? I could not find this requirement published anywhere. I have looked in the following places:

• • Constant Content's Onboarding Guide for writers
  • The Writer Guidelines [I was going to link to them, but I'm getting a forum error that apparently I have too many links in this post(???)].
  • The Extended Guidelines

Am I missing it somewhere?

3) I have had several articles accepted in the past that were under 400 words. Several of them have sold. One of them sold today!

I resubmitted my article (without changes), but in the "Note to Editor" box, I wrote a note saying that I've had other pieces under 400 words accepted before. I pointed out that the price guide starts at 300 words and included a link to it. The article was rejected a second time, about an hour later. The second e-mail said not to resubmit. The reason for the rejection was the same: because it was fewer than 400 words. There were no comments from the editor either time, except for the length not being 400 words.

I won't resubmit if it's against the rules... but if 400 words is the minimum, why does CC's pricing guide start at 300 words? If 400 words is the minimum, why have pieces of mine under 400 words been accepted and sold in the past?

Thank you to anyone who can help. I am quite frustrated by this.

*** Post edited to add: I just logged out, went to Constant Content's homepage, and searched for articles. I didn't specify a topic or any rights. I just filtered it by word count... for the word count range, I entered 1 as the minimum and 399 for the maximum. There were 9,479 hits! That means 9,479 articles under 400 words are available for customers to buy right now... so where the heck is this "400 words of useful information" thing coming from? If my article didn't have enough useful information, why not just say that?!

[EmilyNorth]

I wondered if this rejection reason were a fluke. So I wrote a new article from scratch the other day. I kept it 350 words on purpose to see if it would go through.

It didn't. It was rejected with this comment:

Hello.
This article is too short for CC standards. Please review your article and look for opportunities to add useful information. CC typically looks for articles that are at least 400 words.
Thanks!

There were no other comments about changes it needed. (The 350-word submission was titled "6 Advantages of Vinyl Flooring.")

Again... if it being "too short" is indeed true, then why were my earlier submissions shorter than 400 words accepted? The very first article I ever submitted here was 300 words, and it was accepted. Other 300-word pieces of mine have been accepted (and sold!).
If this is a new rule, were writers notified about it? Is it in the guidelines somewhere? In the Onboarding Guide it says the "typical article length is around 600 words," but there's nothing about a 400-word minimum length.

Has this happened to anyone else?

By the way, most articles I submit here are 600 words or longer. I'm just trying to understand what's going on with this "at least 400 words" thing. I often write 300-word pieces on spec, and until recently, I could count on being able to post them here if they didn't sell. That's why I'm so frustrated by this.