Must-Read Resources - New Authors: Start Here

[Lysis]

Hi Jenny,

I'm a DS writer too, and CC is totally different. Write what you want, but the editor is more strict than DS copyeditors. There are no templates except proper grammar. :D It also helps to browse other articles.

[JennyTB]

Hi Lysis,

Thanks for your reply... I think I recognize your name from the DS forums. :-) Good to know we can free-form our work. We can look at other articles, but only see the half of the page or so as an example right?

Have a great weekend.

[Lysis]

Hi Jenny, I think we have spoken in PMs on DS! :D

Just a couple of tips:

A) read the guidelines. There is a specific format (single spaced, arial 12pt font). It will save yourself some rejections for dumb things like bad format.
B) make sure you really proof and watch passive voice. Fix bad sentence structure. You'll get rejected and it's frustrating, but when you go back and read what's been rejected, you realize it did need to be reworked. Basically, sloppy work won't pass.
C) Don't get frustrated. I think I had 25 articles up before I started to see sales. I've only been here three weeks, but this week I had 4 sales, so I hope to keep up the trend
D) If you need help, feel free to PM me. I've had quite a few articles rejected, but there is a 3 rejection limit where the editor can choose to boot you. I don't want that to sound scary, but when you're new, I notice you're kinda in a probationary period for the editor. Just put your best work in front of him especially in the beginning. I have a few rejected since my initial 20 or so articles, but I do put out some articles that sell really well. The editor does have an eye for good stuff, because the stuff that passes usually sells well for me. When he rejects some of my stuff, I reread it and agree that it sucks. LOL
E) Watch the "Recently Sold List." It gives you an idea of pricing for fullrights, which is what most people want.
F) Write about stuff you like and know, but keep diversity to have a wide portfolio.

These are the things I learned when first staring. Hopefully this helps you out a bit.

[JennyTB]

Wow, thank you for this incredibly useful information! I'm copying it right now to refer to it when I'm ready to write. I really appreciate you sharing these tips with me. You are the best. :-)

[Lysis]

No problem! I forgot to add that there is some article farmer that offers $8 for full rights to new content. He's done it to approximately 5 of my articles. Incidentally, 2 of them have sold for $40 and $50 respectively, so don't be afraid to reject ridiculously low offers even if you made no sales. You do yourself a disservice by selling to these guys. A writer should not be charging $.01 or less for work. My minimum is $.05 and that is really low.

This is some of the stuff I learned from just watching on here. Just so you don't get frustrated if you're rejected, I had 3 before I sat down and thought "OK, what am I doing wrong" and got my act together. You'll save yourself frustration if you make sure to do your best. I have 30+ articles now, but this week the editor had some sadistic fun and hit the reject button for 5 out of 10 of my articles. OOOOUCH! LOl Seriously though, when I went back and looked, I only had one article where I thought it deserved a second round and rewrote it. The others I agreed - they sucked. LOL

[Phil]

Thank you for posting the links. I can feel the love already

[pcreek54]

It seems that I cannot find the answers to these general questions: Where do I submit my articles? Is there a place where I can see the customers' requested articles? I have just registered and still just finding my way through here. Thanks for the help.

Right now, I'm feeling very computer ILLITERATE. I was hoping to find my answer within your question, but no such luck. I am needing to know once you have filled out the submission form and it says to upload article, attach file and so forth, how you do it. I tried using "send", (right-clicking), but it brought up an e-mail page, and I didn't have an e-mail address. I'm beginning to wonder if I bit off more than I can chew. Not only that, I probably didn't even post this in the correct place, but couldn't figure out how to post a "new" question. Thanks for letting me borrow yours.

[Debbi]

pcreek,

When you submit an article, it asks you for Category, type of submission (article, etc.), and then has a box for uploding the file. To the right of that box is a Browse button. Click on that and then navigate to your article file on your computer and click Open. That will attach your article to the Submit Article form. You have to fill out all the required fields or it won't let you submit.

Now, having said that, have you read all the writer's guidelines, FAQ, and tutorial? So many new writers (like me) get rejected the first time because they didn't put their artile in the right format -- Times New Roman 12, single spaced flush left paragraphs, saved in .doc, .rtf, or .txt format (not .docx which is Word 2007's default), and so on. Double-check, triple-check, quadruple-check your grammar, punctuation, and spelling. CC is very particular about approving articles.

These forums are full of great advice from the writers here. A great forum to read is Questions and Answers and Author's Exchange.

Hope this helps!

Debbi

[kquinn]

One simple question. I've been reading tutorials and the forum and I haven't found ithe answer yet. On the requested content page, what on earth does purchase rating mean? Also, is there some way to tell if people have already submitted articles for a particular request?

[Lysis]

One simple question. I've been reading tutorials and the forum and I haven't found ithe answer yet. On the requested content page, what on earth does purchase rating mean? Also, is there some way to tell if people have already submitted articles for a particular request?

I take note of the buyer's purchase rating when he drops a request I'm interested in. If the number goes up, he's purchased articles already. Purchase rating is how many articles the buyer has purchased through CC. It gives a writer a good feel for whether or not the buyer will actually buy the article. Basically, is it worth your time or not to drop what you're doing for the buyer. It can also be used to decide if you want to write on a very narrow field. For instance, if the buyer has a 0 rating and wants something too narrow that you feel won't sell if it goes public, it might not be worth it. However, if the buyer has a high purchase rating, then it's probably worth it. Overall, I think there is a good purchase rate here for buyers. Plus, I've seen buyers come back after several weeks and buy some more articles that they had originally let go.

[KirkhamsEbooks]

This will be slightly new to me. I'm accustom to submitting to article directories.

The main differences I'm seeing are to have a description of the article NOT copy and pasted from the article itself and no links in the about the author section or is there an about the author section allowed at all?

Rick

[nichewriter]

This will be slightly new to me. I'm accustom to submitting to article directories.

The main differences I'm seeing are to have a description of the article NOT copy and pasted from the article itself and no links in the about the author section or is there an about the author section allowed at all?

Rick

Rick,

You can put information about you and what you do on your CC profile page. You can't put your resource box or author bio in the articles you submit. You can include your byline, though (e.g., Article Title by Ima Writer), so that if your article sells for usage or unique rights, buyers can attribute the article to you. (And if a buyer buys full rights, it's basically like you've ghostwritten the article and the buyer can put his name on it.)

As for the description, I believe you mean the summary. Each time you submit an article for review, you need to create a unique summary for it. It's not like simply copying and pasting the first few lines from your article. Think of the summary as your chance to sell your article. Tell buyers what your article is all about, and make it compelling enough that they will want to see your sample.

CC is different from article directories. The quality of articles on CC is much higher than the quality of articles you'll see in article directories. That's because every article authors submit here goes through a review process, and buyers can be confident that they are paying for good content. New CC authors are advised to read and familiarize themselves with the guidelines and make sure their first submissions follow these guidelines.

Welcome to CC, and if you have any questions, the forum is the right place to ask.

~Sherry

[KirkhamsEbooks]

Very helpful and makes perfect sense when dealing with a sellable product as opposed to a promotional product

Rick

[Rydeguzman]

I'm a newbie here. My two articles have just been rejected at the same time. I've submitted the second one without waiting for the first response. I know I should have waited for the first response before sending another to be able to know if the previous one will be approved or not. I've submitted the 2nd article because I had received dozens of requests. Also, I submitted the second one because it took long for me to wait for the first one to be approved.

My question now is this: Do I have to revise the same two articles that wasn't approved and resubmit them? Or should I make a new one? One that is for public request? Should I send the same manner as I did for the two articles?

I would really appreciate if somebody can help me.

Thanks,

Ryan DG

[Celeste Stewart]

Hello,
It's up to you as far as whether or not you want to revise the initial articles. Keep in mind that all of those public requests are going out to the entire population of CC writers, so don't feel as if you are obligated to write for any of them at this point. Right now, you're in the early stages of the CC process where patience really is a virtue. While it's a pain to wait for those initial articles to get accepted, it's worth focusing on. Once you have the hang of the CC site and all of its nuances, then you can start worrying about helping customers with their public requests. Yes, it often takes longer for new CC writers to get those initial articles approved than it does for established writers working on public requests, but it's worth your time to explore the system here. Hang tight, ask questions, keep tweaking, and soon enough you'll get it .