Data Analysis - Chances of Selling & How Much You Can Make

[PaulMaplesden]

It's back to my beloved spreadsheets, for what I hope is some more insightful data on sales here, how much writers can make, inventories and more. This follows on from the previous threads that I put together on data from analysis of CC information, which you can find elsewhere in this forum.

In this post, I have attempted to bring together lots of information from various areas to answer the big question - How much can we actually *make* on CC by regularly submitting articles?

A few points to note:

- This is based on around 30 days of sampling data in late May and June only, so there *are* bound to be seasonable variations
- I have made a few assumptions about the data
- The data listed here on selling articles is based on all else being equal - In other words, it doesn't take account of individual writer's pricing, client relationships, styles or anything like that; it is based on data from the site as a whole
- There is no guarantee of future performance or sales here, this is purely based on historic information
- This is only based on 'Public', Catalog sales
- This is a snapshot at a single point in time
- Because of the (relatively) few number of data points (< 1,000), there are skews and fluctuations, but I am working with what I have!

I have divided this post into two main parts:

- Part One - Details of inventory, number of articles sold and percentage of articles sold
- Part Two - What this means to writers in terms of how much we need to produce to earn money

OK, let's take a look at the data.

Part One - Details of inventory, number of articles sold and percentage of articles sold

Total Inventory
One of the most important areas is the total inventory of articles that customers have to buy from, since that's the overall catalog that we are submitting to, this looks as follows (largest to smallest):


Health & Lifestyles: 9,573
Home: 7,291
Business: 6,099
Relationships: 3,408
Recreation : 3,172
Technology: 2,935
Society: 2,519
Arts & Culture: 2,031
Merchandise: 1,136
Science: 827
Regional: 791
Sports: 596
General: 509
Total : 40,887

And here it is in graph form.




Total Number of Articles Sold per Month

So, we know how many articles are in the inventory, but how many of those are actually selling? Glad you asked, here's a snapshot of sales over the last thirty days in terms of number of articles sold:

Health & Lifestyles: 219
Business: 188
Home: 103
Relationships: 100
Technology: 67
Recreation : 61
Merchandise: 38
Arts & Culture: 35
Society: 35
Regional: 14
Science: 14
General: 10
Sports: 5

And in graph form




Percent of Inventory Sold per Month
Using the figures above, we can calculate the total percentage of articles by area that are sold in a month, this looks like the following (largest to smallest):

Merchandise: 3.1%
Relationships: 2.9%
Home: 2.6%
Health & Lifestyles: 2.3%
Recreation : 2.1%
Technology: 2.1%
Regional: 1.8%
Arts & Culture: 1.7%
Science: 1.7%
Business: 1.7%
Sports: 1.7%
Society: 1.5%
General: 1.0%

And in graph form




Comparing Total Inventory and Percent of Inventory Sold

We can bring all of this together in the following graph, which shows the total number of articles available and the percentage of them that sell per month.




Individual Catalog Areas with the Highest Percentage of Sales

Previously, we've just looked at high level areas, here are the details of the top twenty areas with the highest percentage of catalog sales (filtered for at least ten sales a month)




Part Two - What this means to writers in terms of how much we need to produce to earn money

OK, so we can take all of that lovely data analysis and apply it to what we need to do as writers and what we can expect as a result.

How many articles do I need to produce to sell?

Based on all of the above (and other) data, we can extrapolate how many articles writers should submit per month by area to have a chance of one of them being sold. In the graph below I have shown:

- Number of articles to submit per month for 'Reasonable' chance of sale
- Number of articles to submit per month for 'Good' chance of sale
- Number of articles to submit per month for 'Excellent' chance of sale



You can see from this that 'Business', 'Relationships' and 'Merchandise' require the fewest submissions for sales.

All of the following data and graphs are based on a writer submitting 30 articles a month (one per day, 7.5 a week), since that seems to be a reasonable number, within the reach of most of us. Clearly, some writers will submit more articles and some fewer, in which cases these chances and numbers would increase or decrease relatively. All of this data is based on submitting 30 articles into one individual area

Submitting 30 Articles a Month - Chance by Area, Per Month of One Sale

This graph shows the likelihood of making at least one sale a month, based on submitting 30 articles, split by area.




Submitting 30 Articles a Month - Likely Number of Sales by Area, Per Month

Based on submitting 30 articles a month, this is the likely number you will sell per month by area.




Submitting 30 Articles a Month - Likely Value of Sales by Area, Per Month in Dollars

Based on the previous work looking at licensing costs ( https://www.constant-content.com/forum/ ... =2&t=76728 ), we can calculate the total potential earnings per month by area, as follows:





Cumulative Value of Sales

This data only represents how much a writer will earn in one month, based on submitting 30 articles, however we can also look at their likely sales per month based on a continuous submission of 30 articles (Since all of their back catalog will be available to buy as well). This looks like the following:




Conclusion

So, what does this all tell us? Here are some of the key points that I think the data shows:

- You have to keep writing to earn decent money here; 30 articles a month feels like a minimum to have any guarantee of ongoing success, and if you can submit more high-quality articles, so much the better
- Having a decent back catalog is really important - It takes time to build up momentum on CC, but more articles *significantly* improves your chances of getting one purchased
- There are clearly some areas that perform much better than others (at least in the data that I analyzed); in terms of percent of inventory, that was: Merchandise, Relationships, Home; in terms of number of sales it was: Health, Business, Home; in terms of chance of sales it was: Merchandise, Business, Home
- You have to pay attention to pricing to sell, more information here: https://www.constant-content.com/forum/ ... =2&t=76728

I hope that all of this is useful information and that it guides you in future writing for the site. I am grateful for any feedback.

Thanks,

Paul.

[calmsea]

Are you sure that the recently sold articles list is reflective of all the sales at Constant Content?

If not, these statistics may not accurately reflect your chances of selling, or your earning potential here. The numbers do seem rather dismal. However, I've never been great at reading graphs .

Are you saying that if you write 30 articles per month you will earn a total amount of around $350 for the year? This would be from 360 articles. Or is this the amount that would be averaged per month over the year? Earning $350 per month for 30 articles isn't as bad, but still seems rather low.

I have seen past posts on this forum stating statistics reported by Constant Content themselves that suggested writer's sold about 70% or more of the articles they listed on average over the year, and that each article listed could represent an average of 20 dollars. I've also seen anecdotal stories where the authors reported that about 50% of what they submitted sold fairly quickly with the rest selling through the months after listing. Writer's that submitted a lot did tend to do better than those who only put up a few articles for a variety of reasons.

Anyway, it does look like you did a lot of work, so thanks for posting this. I just want to make sure I'm clearly understanding what the numbers mean.

[NYWriter]

This is fantastic! I find stuff like this truly helpful -- thanks!

[PaulMaplesden]

You're very welcome, glad it's helpful.

[jenniferschneider06]

I don't think that Constant Content shows every single article that is sold per day. I have sold articles that don't even show up on that list. I think it is just the most recent. I, personally, have only written 5 articles and 2 have already sold. I appreciate you trying to put something together, however I'm not sure if it is completely accurate, or I could just be reading the results wrong.

[Lysis]

^ OP admits it's not accurate, because obviously he's not awake 24/7 to hand pick all the sales. He'd also have to sit there hitting refresh too much. But, I think maybe a little bit of info can be extrapolated.

And yeah, I sold 5 today that never showed in the list. Gotta take all data with a grain of salt!

[PaulMaplesden]

Yes, it's certainly *not* 100% accurate - Sometimes Constant Content doesn't update the list (I assume that it's a database glitch). However, I have now got data on 1,600 articles that have sold and $44,000 in license sales over the last few weeks, so I think it's a reasonable set of data to infer from. Ultimately, you'll achieve the best results by writing across a variety of categories and seeing what sells, but I hope this is a reasonable starting point.

[jak]

The site has changed significantly over time. The sales list is now headed catalogue sales and I assume that means it doesn't cover sales of requested content, either public or private. We used to be able to make decisions on whether to write for public requests by watching for sales that appear to match the requests, but not any longer. The other factor is that the number of sales we see on the Writing Ideas page is only about the last twenty whenever it is updated. There may be many more. My sales often don't appear in that list, at least by the time I know about them and go to look.

[PaulMaplesden]

The site has changed significantly over time. The sales list is now headed catalogue sales and I assume that means it doesn't cover sales of requested content, either public or private. We used to be able to make decisions on whether to write for public requests by watching for sales that appear to match the requests, but not any longer. The other factor is that the number of sales we see on the Writing Ideas page is only about the last twenty whenever it is updated. There may be many more. My sales often don't appear in that list, at least by the time I know about them and go to look.

Yes, I've noticed that the 'Writing Ideas' page is... spurious in how often and accurately it updates. I do grab data off of there five or six times a day to keep my dataset fresh, but I am aware that it's not completely (or even largely) accurate. I'd love to get a complete dataset from CC!

[jenniferschneider06]

Thank you for the clarification! I do think that it is very helpful to writers; it gives us an idea of what sells best on this site. Thank you for putting it together.

[remoteriverman]

Thanks for all your work on this, Paul - it's really excellent and useful.

The statistic that would interest me the most is 'average money made per Public Request sale', and whether this has dropped (or risen) in the past 5 years. Though I have an 80% approval rate for my articles on Constant Content and sell the overwhelming majority of what I produce here, I have been writing less and less on CC lately, because there seems to be a greater preponderance of 5-cents-a-word Public Requests around this year (I even received Private Requests at this rather abysmal rate, which comes to just over 3 cents a word after CC takes their cut).

Because I'm now working for several private (non-CC) business clients who pay me anywhere from 15-25 cents a word, the 3.25-cents-a-word (net) offers on CC aren't cutting it for me these days (though I did write a bit for CC at higher rates last month).

Late last year, I - and a lot of other CC authors - made good money from a high volume of CC Writer Pool requests (which also appear to have dried up this year, at least so far). I think that would be another interesting stat to look at: money earned by CC authors from Writer Pools, from one year to the next.

Love your work!

Cheers,
Kevin Casey
author of the Freelance Writer's Guide to Making Money on Constant Content.com

[PaulMaplesden]

Thanks for all your work on this, Paul - it's really excellent and useful.

The statistic that would interest me the most is 'average money made per Public Request sale', and whether this has dropped (or risen) in the past 5 years. Though I have an 80% approval rate for my articles on Constant Content and sell the overwhelming majority of what I produce here, I have been writing less and less on CC lately, because there seems to be a greater preponderance of 5-cents-a-word Public Requests around this year (I even received Private Requests at this rather abysmal rate, which comes to just over 3 cents a word after CC takes their cut).

Because I'm now working for several private (non-CC) business clients who pay me anywhere from 15-25 cents a word, the 3.25-cents-a-word (net) offers on CC aren't cutting it for me these days (though I did write a bit for CC at higher rates last month).

Late last year, I - and a lot of other CC authors - made good money from a high volume of CC Writer Pool requests (which also appear to have dried up this year, at least so far). I think that would be another interesting stat to look at: money earned by CC authors from Writer Pools, from one year to the next.

Love your work!

Cheers,
Kevin Casey
author of the Freelance Writer's Guide to Making Money on Constant Content.com

Hi Kevin,

I've only been gathering data for around six or seven weeks now and don't have anything before that. - I can tell you that the average money made per public request sale in that time is $39 for a full license and $17 for a usage one - This is across 1,650 sales in that time. Currently, average rates per word are 6.3c for full and 2.8c for usage. This is purely for public requests, I don't have anything for private requests.

I hope this is useful.

Paul.

[remoteriverman]

Yes, those figures are helpful to know, Paul. Appreciate it!

Are these numbers the gross amounts, or the net after CC takes their 35%?

Cheers,
Kevin Casey

[PaulMaplesden]

Kevin, all figures shown are gross amounts.

[LauraGinn]

Thanks for all your work on this, Paul - it's really excellent and useful.

The statistic that would interest me the most is 'average money made per Public Request sale', and whether this has dropped (or risen) in the past 5 years. Though I have an 80% approval rate for my articles on Constant Content and sell the overwhelming majority of what I produce here, I have been writing less and less on CC lately, because there seems to be a greater preponderance of 5-cents-a-word Public Requests around this year (I even received Private Requests at this rather abysmal rate, which comes to just over 3 cents a word after CC takes their cut).

Because I'm now working for several private (non-CC) business clients who pay me anywhere from 15-25 cents a word, the 3.25-cents-a-word (net) offers on CC aren't cutting it for me these days (though I did write a bit for CC at higher rates last month).

Late last year, I - and a lot of other CC authors - made good money from a high volume of CC Writer Pool requests (which also appear to have dried up this year, at least so far). I think that would be another interesting stat to look at: money earned by CC authors from Writer Pools, from one year to the next.

Love your work!

Cheers,
Kevin Casey
author of the Freelance Writer's Guide to Making Money on Constant Content.com

I'm pretty sure this client won't be returning. I used to work for him for about three years before I opened up an account here and the articles he purchased were used as guest posts. He got pretty badly stung in the Google update at the beginning of the year. I haven't heard from him since February but I'm pretty sure he's not guest posting any more.