How much Content Excerpt?

[DavidLeePortwood]

I know this has been asked and answered before, but in light of recent awareness that articles have been pulled from CC without payment, perhaps from the Excerpt, and sold elsewhere without authorization, I thought it prudent to revisit the issue. CC asks for one third of an article to be shown in the excerpt. I always thought it best to show the entire article, and that is what I've been doing, because it seems fairest to the prospective buyer. Should I rethink that policy? Is there a general consensus about how much Excerpt to show? As much as possible, or as little as possible?

David

[4rumid]

I don't think there's a consensus on this issue. Some people feel strongly about posting the entire article, others post varying amounts. I myself only post the entire article if it's for a request, so the buyer can see that he's getting what he asked for. Otherwise, I post most of the article, so potential buyers get a strong sense of what's there, but don't have access to the whole thing. Apparently, even excerpts that cut off suddently or include text such as "Article continues" still get stolen. So, ultimately it's your call, based on what you're comfortable doing.

[AmyT]

I can't say much since I've only been her a few months but I do know that out of the four articles I have written here, it's only the one with the full text visible that actually got sold. Will be trying that strategy for the article that got accepted today.

Amy

[nichewriter]

I'm with 4rumid - it depends on your comfort level. The only times I've posted the entire article in the content excerpt are when I got a private request and a few times when I responded to public requests (I already had articles in my portfolio and I was okay showing the buyers the entire article to help them decide). I've sold 400+ articles here on CC by posting 1/3 (sometimes 1/2) of the article - it's been working for me, and I'm comfortable with it.

~Sherry