CornerScribe

Archive for the ‘Markets’ Category

You’re interested in selling some writing, maybe even starting to “freelance,” but where do you go to SELL your work? Here are some of the most popular sites and the pros and cons of using each.

Constant Content

After registering, you’ll submit your work for approval. You can submit content that matches up to a previous request, or you can write whatever you like. After the content is approved, it’s up for sale.

Pros: You can write about what you want and charge what you want. Writers can typically get more from Constant Content than from other sites.

Cons: Your writing skills need to be a bit more polished than other sites might require; otherwise, your content is likely to be rejected. Your content may not sell for quite some time, or ever. In my experience, most of the content sold here will sell for full rights, meaning that the writer gets no byline or credit for the piece. Writers will need to accumulate $50 in earnings before being paid.

Associated Content

Associated Content is similar to Constant Content. Associated Content has different payment categories, some of which pay up-front and others don’t.

Pros: You can get paid something for just about anything you’ve written. Even if they offer no up-front payment, you’ll get paid a small amount for each article based on its page views, so your articles can continue to earn for months or even more. Even better, Associated Content will begin paying you about a week after your first article is bought. Beginning writers will find their work more readily accepted here. Because writers can claim their works publicly, Associated Content also makes a much better portfolio than Constant Content does.

Cons: The pay is pretty low, sometimes only $3-7 per article. Priority is given to content that is unique to the site.

Helium

Helium allows you to post whatever content you want, like Associated Content. However, Helium is unique in that members rate articles, and those ratings determine which articles move to the top of their categories and get the most page views.

Pros: You get paid something for your work, but it may be a small amount since Helium pays a percentage of the advertising revenue the article earns. Helium also has a marketplace where buyers can ask for particular articles, but in my experience there are usually few options there.

Cons: The pay is low. You’ll need to accumulate $25 or more before you get paid.

Suite 101

I can’t speak to the pros and cons of this site since I’m not a member. Unlike the other sites listed here, Suite 101 requires writers to apply to write for them. From that point, they sound a lot like Helium; they pay a percentage of the ad revenue your articles earn.

Xomba is another site that works very much like Helium or Suite 101.  The revenue model for many of these is the same, you earn a share of adsense revenue.

You may be asking, why would I use any of these sites that share their ad revenue when I can write for myself and get all the ad revenue? That’s a good question, and I think it depends on what your ultimate goal is. Writing for your own site will build your blog or website and, over time, increase its traffic. However, you’re likely to earn very little if anything in ad revenue for some time. Sites like Helium can provide you with better initial traffic, and higher earnings. If you’re allowed to put links back to your own site, you can also drive some traffic as well (check the TOS first).

This is what I do. If the content would work well on one of my blogs, that’s where I put it. If it’s an article that I’m interested in writing but that doesn’t fit with my blogs, then I sell it.

Note that I’ve deliberately eliminated sites that pay you to write advertisements and reviews on your own site. Those are a bit of a different animal. I also didn’t include article directories that don’t pay but that drive traffic back to your site. I also didn’t include freelancing sites like elance or guru.  All those are for a future post.

My best advice is to experiment with different sites. Join, write an article or two and see what happens. You may find some easier to work with than others. I tend to post most of my work to Constant Content. If an article doesn’t sell after several weeks, then I might consider placing it on Associated Content or even Helium. In short, try for the biggest payout first, and only later settle for one of the lower paying options.

Craig recently asked in a comment to my post 10 Reasons I Didn’t Buy Your Article to talk more about what I’d recommend for success on Constant Content.

I’m no expert, but I do have some additional tips that might be helpful if you’re looking to sell there.

Requested Content

Writing an article that fits a request automatically gives you an edge in selling it. You know you have at least one person interested in purchasing what you’ve written. Of course, there are dozens of other people who’ll also be writing articles for that same request. To better your chances, check for requests often and try to get an article posted as quickly as you can. You’ll have better luck if you already have an article approved to offer the potential buyer. Whether that’s possible is largely a matter of luck, however.

Recently Sold Content

Check this section out daily. It will give you an idea what types of articles sell regularly, and for what price. Both are important things to know if you plan on selling with any volume.

Most Prolific Writers

Look over the profiles of some of the most popular writers and see what they’re writing, and charging. Keep in mind that very popular writers may be able to charge more than you can, but this should still give you some ideas where to begin.

Choosing Your Topics

After doing your research on what topics sell well, think about what topics you’ll be able to write for. If Astrology is popular, for example, but you know nothing about it, it’s probably still a bad choice for you. Any topic that requires you to do a lot of research won’t pay well enough to warrant all the time you’ll spend putting your articles together. Add to that the fact that you’ll have a difficult time competing with writers who know the topic well and have a real passion for it.

Try to balance writing about topics that are popular with writing about topics that you know something about. If you can get $10 for an article that took an hour to write, you’re better off than if you sold one for twice as much but spent hours researching and writing.

Naming Your Price

You may be tempted to price your articles really low, but don’t. People will assume that a $10 article is of better quality than a $1 article, and you may be surprised that the $10 version actually sells better. Browse some articles on similar topics, of similar word counts, and price your article at a price that’s in the ballpark.

Be Patient

Patience is your best friend on Constant Content. I’ve sold articles weeks or even months after I posted them. Don’t lose hope if you post a few and get no response right away. Write some more, adjust your prices if needed, and see what happens. It’s no coincidence that the most popular writers have hundreds of pieces for sale.

Here are a couple market listings you may be interested in.

Permuted Press

I found these guys because my husband bought a couple of their books. I read one this weekend, Day by Day Armageddon, and it was good. If you like zombie fiction, then it’s one you may want to check out.

It looks like Permuted Press is taking submissions for an anthology now, but not for novels.

Tales of the Zombie War

If you like to write (or read) zombie fiction, then this is a magazine you may be interested in. They don’t pay, unfortunately.

Dark Scribe

While not exclusively zombie, this magazine covers horror in general. If you’d rather write a review or some other nonfiction piece, then they may be for you. Plus, they’re a paying market!

Now is a good time to sit down and mark up your calendar for the upcoming year. Since many magazines and publishers want material months in advance, you need to plan ahead and note deadlines.

Are you planning on writing any holiday or seasonal material? Now is the time to think about markets and find their deadlines. You might be surprised to find that you’re almost certainly too late for Valentine’s Day for most pubs. Mother’s Day? Maybe, but it could be close.

Ralan is a great source for market info, both paying and non-paying.

The West Virginia Writer’s yearly contest is getting underway.  I’ve been told that some of these categories get rather sparse participation, so it might be a good way to get a win under your belt.

I have to say that so far, I’m pleasantly surprised by Entrecard. You can check out my earlier posts about them here and here.

I’m still seeing a good traffic boost from Entrecard. Visitors are also commenting more, which is terrific. Of course, the extra page views will be a good thing for Project Wonderful as well, so the two should work well together.

As a thank you to all those visiting, here’s a list of my top ten card droppers. Keep coming back, and don’t forget to subscribe to my feed!

1. Yimto Affiliate Marketing Blog
2. Shop Dog Diaries
3. Computer Tech News
4. Vigorous Writing
5. My Weight Loss for Life
6. Turnip of Power
7. My Internet Marketing Adventures
8. Bebo Author
9. About Every Little Thing
10. My Sense and Sensibility

You’ve probably notice the Project Wonderful ad box in my sidebar. Project Wonderful allows you to auction off ad space on your site to the highest bidder, or bid or ad space. It uses an ebay style auction system that allows you to set maximum bids, so you don’t have to stay tied to the computer.

What I like so far

1. You have the option to approve (or reject) all advertisers. Although I’m set to not run anything NSFW (not safe for work), that didn’t stop something I considered very NSFW showing up as a bid.
2. You can automatically approve ads from sites you’ve already approved. That’s a big time saver.
3. You can control the placement and number of ads.
4. It gives small sites or those just getting in to advertising a way to sell some ads.

What I don’t like

1.  So far, the prices have been very low. I’m hoping that as the site builds a track record, the price will go up. As it is, it’s hardly worth the trouble.
2. In order to sell ads, I almost have to accept a lot that don’t have a lot of relevance to the site.
3. Project Wonderful uses their own code to estimate page views, which is much less than what my stats software calculates.
4. You can’t make some alterations to the ad block once bidding has started. So, things like placement and the number of ads can’t be easily changed.

I’ve been running it only a couple of days, so I’m still open. These are just my initial reactions, and I’ll keep you up to date as the month progresses.

John Cow has an article on why he’s dropping out of Entrecard. In short, he argues that people are gaming the system by spending lots of time dropping cards on sights, encouraging people to drop on them, and sites are seeing their Entrecard prices artificially inflated.

First, I realize that the traffic from Entrecard is likely to be of pretty low quality. I might expect to get one reader from a few hundred who visit this way. I do think, however, that Entrecard can still be a good way to attract traffic.

• I think that those gaming the system are probably looking for a quick boost in traffic and/or quick money. Over time, they’ll get tired of it and move on to the latest big thing.
• Problogger’s article on Entrecard probably is doing a lot to drive users to Entrecard. I expect many of these users will stick around a little while and then dwindle away.
• If you’re buying ads on Entrecard, then check the quality of the site before you put out a lot of credits for a 24 hours spot. At least check the page rank and the Alexa rank before going ahead.
• Don’t trade recommendations, and don’t respond to people who ask that you do so. It’s against Entrecard’s policy, and the value of a recommendation system lies in honest recommendations, not traded ones.
• Don’t spend hours dropping cards on every site available. Yes, you’ll earn credits, but you could be doing something much more beneficial to your blogging (and money-making) than that.

I’m still taking a wait and see approach to Entrecard. My traffic is up from it, but I have no idea yet how that will translate to readers and RSS subscribers. I’ll keep you up to date.

Entrecard is a relatively new way to advertise your blog. Here is a quick rundown of how it works, and how you can use it effectively.

How does Entrecard work?

1. You sign up for Entrecard and place their widget on your blog. You’ll see mine in the sidebar.
2. Almost immediately, I started to receive ad requests for the blog. Review them, and approve any that you want to allow to run. Personally, I try to keep the ads relevant to the blog content.
3. You get paid by your advertisers in Entrecard credits. Use those credits to buy your own ad campaigns on other blogs.
4. Visit blogs and drop your entrecard there to earn credits.
5. You also earn credits for each card someone drops on your site. The number of cards dropped also determines your advertising price.

Tips for getting the most from Entrecard

1. Check out advertisers who will run ads on your site before approving the ads (just in case there’s something you find offensive or inappropriate).
2. Check your Entrecard dashboard daily to respond to ad requests, check your messages, etc. I’ve had an ad requested for three days now from a blogger with no response. Do you you think I’ll ever work with her again? Probably not.
3. Use the statistics page to gauge the success of your ad campaigns and re-use blogs that did well for you. Also, experiment with your entrecard icon and text to see what works and what doesn’t.
4. Set aside time each day to visit blogs and drop your entrecard. An easy way to do this is set up a separate folder for entrecard blogs in your RSS feed. Subscribe to the feeds, and then visit the blogs from your RSS reader and drop your card daily. I’ve found this to be quicker than visiting Entrecard directly for each blog.

I’m not sure that the quality of traffic coming from Entrecard is particularly good. I’m sure that a lot of users are simply dropping cards without taking a second look at the blog content (or subscribing, etc.) However, it has raised my overall traffic, so that’s one positive.

Also, I’m hoping that by targeting blogs in my niche for advertising, I can attract readers who may be interested in my blog’s content. I see a lot of ad requests coming in for blogs completely unrelated to what Corner Scribe covers, and I just don’t see much point in running those. As I continue to try it out, I’ll let you know how it works for me.

If you’re an entrecard user, post your URL below and I’ll add you to my RSS feed.

See Problogger’s Article for more info.

Paperback Writer has a great post about Scribd. In short, it’s a site where you can post your writing and have others find it and read it. The advantage of posting it there instead of on your own site is the availability. Of course, if you’re getting tons of traffic anyway, it might not be as useful.

One thing to keep in mind… if you double-post material to scribd and your site, you’ll get a search engine penalty for duplicate content. My guess is that it’s worth the exposure you’d get, but if you’re really focusing on your search engine optimization, it’s something to keep in mind.

Daily Blog Tips has a post on using your blog to get paid writing jobs. If your blog isn’t generating the kind of money you’d like to be making from it, maybe you can use it to make a little cash elsewhere.

The Writer’s Manifesto Blog has a post listing places to freelance. I’ve used Elance in the past, with some limited success. If you’re planning on using one of these types of sites, you’ll need a portfolio of examples of your work. Elance (and others probably as well) provides a way to upload reviews from prior clients so you have a rating for prospective clients.

EMoms at Home lists a variety of ways to promote your blog.

If you’re looking for a piece of free software to get something done, then check out Paperback Writer’s list. Wow, this is huge, and definitely worth bookmarking.

Here’s a list of top blogs for writers. If you’re looking for a new blog to add to your RSS feed (and who isn’t!), then this list is one to check out.

Here’s a contest to win $500, if you’re feeling lucky.

Check out this list to find a freelancing job.

Here’s another market listing from Paperback Writer. If you’re not already reading her blog regularly, why not?