full text or excerpt?

[stelle]

In your experience, do you find that articles sell faster when you include the full text? So far, I'm putting up general articles with 1/3 text and articles for public requests with full text. But I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better for sales to always put up the full text.

I'm a bit skittish, because I've had a few articles scraped on CC in the past (2011). One of them - luckily - only had 1/3 text up, and a buyer paid me to rewrite that part of the text. I was lucky. If I'd put up the whole text, then I wouldn't have made any money off that article at all.

However, if full text means more sales, then it might be worth it to risk infrequent losses to content theft - kind of like a loss leader.

I'd love to get an idea of what other writers are doing!

Thanks,
S

[BarryDavidson]

You'll find a lot of different answers. Many writers put at least 2/3. I don't know any who put up their whole articles unless it's for a private request. I'd recommend just posting the lead-in and just enough to hook someone in. Think of a how-to article as an example. First you talk about the product and/or problem, and then move on to the steps on how to use/fix it. So you really only want to put up the beginning, and a small part of the solution. Why? How often do you click next on a page because the beginning of an article whetted your appetite?

[mnicol22]

I prefer to just post the entire article. I like the reader to be able to see the whole thing before buying it. Yeah yeah, I know, there are scrapers, and that's why C-C has a return policy in case the customer doesn't like the rest of the article... But I really can't bother to think of it that way.

I guess I've been lucky enough not to have had any articles stolen so far. If that ever happened, I'm pretty sure I'd change my attitude towards posting the entire article.

[Judith]

When I first started here I posted a third, but it wasn't long before I started posting the whole article and so far it has worked well for me. If I was the customer, I would want to see the whole article.

[stelle]

Thanks for the feedback! I think I'm going to put full text for now, and then reevaluate later on. I know that I feel more comfortable setting higher prices when the buyer has the opportunity to read the whole text first.

[J. A. Young]

I do a little of both...

Full text for private requests and regular clients; though, admittedly, when a client is brand new to the site--zero sales--I am a bit hesitant about posting the whole thing. Still, I don't feel like I've gotten burned so I still tend to post the whole thing.

Public requests and unrequested submissions--2/3 of the piece and I jump all over. I don't think giving them the first portion makes a client comfortable enough to make a purchase, particularly if it's a high-priced piece. I usually give the first two paragraphs and then use "...[article continues]" and jump down to other portions I want to highlight. This way, I can showcase some great writing examples that may be buried more deeply in the article and I can also demonstrate where the article goes so a buyer knows exactly what to expect from the whole piece.

Anyway, it seems to work for me, but I admit, I sometimes wonder if I should tweak my plan, too. But I'm comfortable overall:)