Disappointed with Constant Content

[ron042704]

I have been a freelance writer now for just over five years and have had the benefit of working with some great websites/private order groups. I initially found Constant Content through a generic search and registered. As I do with all writing sites, I like to peruse the forums first to ascertain what other authors think before taking time to submit any work. The "questions and answers" forum alone speaks volumes in regards what appears to be a rather lackluster performance standard by Constant Content.

From what I see here, important questions go unanswered for long periods of time, there is little feedback from any admin and it seems that writers alone are left to fend for themselves and possibly at the risk of spending inordinate amounts of time doing so. I am happy that I have read through numerous posts before committing myself to this site, as now I will not. There ARE, however, a number of quality sites available which I am currently working with. They pay AS you write; you do not have to submit an article and wait for perhaps months before it gets accepted. They have a toll-free number to call should there be ANY problem, admin ALWAYS answers back...usually within a few hours and most of all (as opposed to some of the questions I have seen here) there are NO issues with billing.

This is by no means a topic intended to "plug" any other sites as I will not mention any here but a way to let my fellow authors know that there are indeed sites that put author priority as number one. It is a shame about constant content nonetheless...thanks all for your time:)

[SAjoe]

I hear you, Ron. Is there a way to PM on this forum?

[Constant]

I'd really encourage you to give our site a try before dismissing us outright, Ron. The Questions and Answers forum is usually a place where you'll find concerns from writers, and not a lot of mention of the good things that our site offers. You're also likely to see threads that represent one-off issues, as well as matters that were resolved via email or phone rather than in a public forum.

I'm not saying that we're perfect or that there are no areas of concern, but I do want to emphasize that we do strive to provide a service that benefits our writers and we take writer concerns very seriously. We try to respond to issues within 24 hours of being notified, and you can contact us at any time via the Contact page on the site.

When you're speaking of billing issues, I'm guessing you're referring to Skyball's post, where he spoke about not being able to access his credits. This was a matter we resolved via email and it was sorted out shortly after he created his post. We have a verification process in place for first time buyers that we needed to complete for him, which we actually put in place to secure our writers' content.

Regarding being paid as you write vs building a catalog - that's a big topic on its own. We do offer some work that's pay as you write, but largely we're a marketplace for high quality content, not a content mill. You may need to wait some time for an article to sell, but you should be able to charge a higher price and earn more from the sale. Building up your catalog of articles is also a good way to spend any downtime you have, so you can passively earn sales over time.

[evaku]

important questions go unanswered for long periods of time.

Every time I send an email with any question at all it is usually replied to by the next day.

They pay AS you write; you do not have to submit an article and wait for perhaps months before it gets accepted.

Months? Are you talking about CC? I have never had to wait more than a week for an article to be accepted, and that is RARE and during times of high submissions and actually hasn't been happening for a few years now. Usually I have to wait about 6-24 hours.

[Celeste Stewart]

What Constant said. Until you try CC for yourself, you can't really judge it. Some writers swear by it (I've done well here and appreciate CC and the doors it has opened for me tremendously); others swear about it (I know others who have struggled or don't like the risk involved). You have two choices: try CC and come to your own conclusions or read forum posts (which can vary wildly even in the most utopian of environments) and let other people shape your opinion.

[SJHillman]

I'm coming up on the one year mark at CC and I've only had two articles that took a week to get approved. The average turnaround time is usually two to three days. I've had more than one article sell within 24 hours of submission to the editors (one sold less than 5 minutes after editorial approval). The only time I had to email support, I submitted my issue later in the evening and had a response and resolution before lunchtime the following day.

That said, CC is not perfect. Editors are sometimes inconsistent and support has sometimes dropped the ball, but as mentioned by others, these tend to be more an exception than the norm. I've found precious few companies in any industry that has a perfect track record. Also take into account that CC strives to improve, so it certainly feels like their 35% cut is going somewhere.

As a final note, I'd like to point out that CC is not for everybody. Some people, such as myself, prefer the CC method of submitting a finished article and then getting paid when it sells. It keeps things simple, which I like. While you may have found other sites that you prefer to CC, I have yet to find a single site that is easier to work with or offers anywhere near the payout that CC does.