What Sells and What Doesn't

A place where authors can exchange ideas or thoughts. Talk about what categories are hot and which ones are not.

Moderators: Celeste Stewart, Ed

jak
Posts: 767
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2008 3:42 pm
Location: UK

Re: What Sells and What Doesn't

Post by jak »

Fascinating discussion in this thread with some really good tips. Thanks, folks.
HayleyWriter
Posts: 536
Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:28 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia
Contact:

Re: What Sells and What Doesn't

Post by HayleyWriter »

Hi all,
I thought I'd get this thread going again because this seems to be a common question with newbies too - what will sell? Quite a few have mentioned it in other places in the forum lately.

Personally, I love the joy of logging in to find I've made an unexpected sale. I've had several sales in the last few days, so I'm hoping that the quiet of December where sales were few is over.

It's amazing what you can write from what you know - following on from Barry's earlier comment. The other day my husband and I made pizza at home. I wrote a quick article detailing the steps we followed and put it up on the site on spec. Imagine my surprise when it sold for full rights within 2 days of being approved, for more than what we paid for the pizza toppings. Ended up making a profit on that meal!

My advice is not to limit yourself to only one or two topics, but build up a portfolio of different articles. That said, the following topics seem to very popular these days:
* Finance - especially budgets, credit cards, loans, etc
* Environmental and recycling
* Romance and dating
* Computers
I've sold a few articles on business management, small business, and other eclectic article like how to make a pizza! "How to" articles seem to sell well as a general rule.
Hayley
Celeste Stewart
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Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2006 5:28 pm
Location: California
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Re: What Sells and What Doesn't

Post by Celeste Stewart »

That's terrific Hayley! When I first started here, everything I did was fair game for an article such as movie reviews, buying a washing machine, looking for a new auto mechanic, cool places to take the kids, finding reputable charitable organizations, stuff like that... I figured if I had to research these things as part of my own life, I might as well write about the process and take advantage of my already done research. It's a great strategy that is fun and rewarding.
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