While articles on topics of all types sell on Constant-Content.com, a good strategy to ensure that your articles have a fighting chance is to write a narrow topic with broad appeal. This take niche writing to a more mainstream level.

For example, let’s say you’ve determined that the auto insurance niche is hot based on your research indicating that bloggers and Internet marketers need articles about car insurance to support the “get a free quote” ads that they are hosting on their sites. Wonderful! You have a niche and you’re inspired to write about car insurance. Before you begin, consider this: Unless the site is brand new, it likely already has plenty of “how to save money on premiums” and “what is an insurance deductible” articles.

Go ahead a write a few of those if the mood strikes, but don’t stop there. Think beyond the niche. How about writing about who should pay for a teen’s insurance policy? Now, not only do you have an article that appeals to the niche sites, you have an article that appeals to parenting sites, personal finance sites, and even women’s lifestyle sites.

The other day a newcomer to Constant-Content asked me to look at his articles and make suggestions. One of the articles, which is perfectly fine, tells British citizens how to research their family histories. It’s market is limited to the U.K. However, a minor tweak (researching your British ancestors) could easily open up that article to a U.S. audience as well. After all, many U.S. citizens have British ancestors.

Another writer mentioned on the Constant-Content forum that she was considering writing articles about how to read music. I hope she thinks beyond the narrow audience of people trying to learn how to read music and writes articles that could appeal to parents, teachers, and lifestyle publishers. For example, an article illustrating how learning to read music improves math skills could have broader appeal than an article about musical scales. 

So, find your niche and broaden it so that your Constant-Content article has several possible homes.

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Constant-Content.com recommends that at least one third of an article submission be copied and pasted into its “long summary” field. This is the sample text that customers see when browsing for articles. While some writers post the entire article, others prefer to show a sample.

If you choose to display only a portion of your article, make sure that you make it obvious that the sample is an excerpt. Otherwise, customers may think that what they see is what they get. They could think your article is choppy (because you selected bits and pieces), extremely thin on substance (because you cut off the article before any key points were discussed), or that it just ends without a clean conclusion (because you didn’t display the final few paragraphs). If customers think any of these thoughts, do you think that they’ll be compelled to click the Buy Now button?

Avoid this problem by telling customers that the text continues. Type in phrases such as:

• (End of excerpt. . .)
• (End of sample. . .)
• (Article continues. . .)
• (Discussion continues. . .)
• (Article goes on to discuss ____, ____, and ___ before concluding with ____.)

What do you usually do? (I post the full article most of the time.) Please share your thoughts below.

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A fellow writer asked me the other day if it’s a good idea to submit an article to Constant-Content.com as well as to AssociatedContent.com and other sites as a means to “monetize” that article.

My preference is to write an article and sell it for full rights as it takes much longer for the article to net the same amount at the lower usage rates. That said, I certainly don’t mind the occasional residual. I’ve had a few real winners in that area, so I see the appeal.

I usually submit to Constant-Content first, hoping for a full rights sale. If the article goes for usage, then I immediately post it as a non-exclusive at Associated Content and Bukisa so that I can earn a bit based on page views. You can do the opposite of course, but doing the opposite means that the article never has a chance to sell for the higher full rights price that it otherwise might’ve been able to command. With AC’s upfronts being so low, it’s rare that I’ll offer an article to AC first unless I’m sure I want to go the usage only route.

As time goes by and articles don’t sell on Constant-Content, you can always remove the unique and full rights licenses and then start posting the article at other sites that accept non-exclusives. Again, I prefere to sell for full rights because it’s easier to sell an article once than it is to sell it several times over. While some of my usage only articles have generated more than my full rights price, most of them haven’t.

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• Writing for Constant-Content.com – Should I Wait?

With so many online writing sites out there, many of which pay only residuals, Constant-Content.com is different. Some new users of the site may arrive with preconceived ideas about what online writing sites are all about. After all, if you’re used to submitting articles for revenue based on page views, you might be a bit concerned about how Constant-Content works.

First, when you submit an article to Constant-Content, there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever make a single penny. Shoot, there’s no guarantee that your article will even be accepted. Even if it is accepted, it could sit on the site for months or years and you will earn nothing until it finally sells. Even then, you’ll only receive 65 percent of the selling price.

This scares off a lot of writers. I hear comments all the time along the lines of “Why on earth would you give up 35 percent of your pay?” Or “What if you spend all that time writing and no one buys your article?”

Here’s what else scares off writers: public requests and writing on speculation. Customers can issue “public requests” which go out to all writers. Interested writers then write the article on speculation, which means that a single public request could generate dozens, potentially hundreds, of similar articles. The customer then picks the article that best meets his needs.

Let’s address some of these concerns. If you’re used to revenue share sites, then you know it’s neat to submit an article and have it generating small amounts of money every time someone views it or clicks on an ad. I like that too, though the income I’m getting from sites like Associated Content isn’t terribly impressive. Revenue share sites are relatively low risk as far as submitting articles goes. As long as an article is accepted and appears online, it will likely get some page views and generate some money for you, especially if you promote it.

With Constant-Content, the risk is high because an article may never sell. On the other hand, prices are higher than revenue share articles. I regularly sell articles in the $100 and above range on Constant-Content.

Let’s take a look at two of the most recent “on speculation” articles I have sold to Associated Content and Constant-Content as an illustration. Last month, I submitted an article How to Restore the Excel 2007 Ribbon, to Associated Content. I got a whopping $2.45 upfront payment and it has earned about ten cents in page views in the past 30 days. So, let’s just round that up to about $2.50 plus $1.20 per year (based on a dime per month). Assuming performance doesn’t change, in ten years, that article will have generated about $15.

Around the same time, I wrote an article for Constant-Content titled, The Google Wonder Wheel: A Mind Map for SEO. It has sold twice for usage rights at $30 each. After the 35 percent commission to Constant-Content, I have already earned $39. Plus, this same article can be sold over and over for usage rights, and I can also post it on revenue share sites. While it may only sell a few more times in the same ten year time period, it’s already ahead of my Associated Content article. Incidentally, it took me about 45 minutes to write The Google Wonder Wheel article, so my hourly wage comes to $52 per hour after the commission. Not bad.

About that 35 percent commission? I don’t worry about it. Simply be aware of it and mark up the price of your articles to account for it. After all, the opportunity to make over $52 per hour after commission is compelling.

About the “What if no one buys the article” question? I don’t worry about it either. If I’m willing to write an occasional article for $2.50 upfront in exchange for revenue from page views, I’m willing to risk an article never selling on Constant-Content. After all, if it doesn’t sell, I can always remove it and submit it to a revenue share site.

About writing for public requests? I wish I could do more of them! Sure, lots of writers are also submitting their articles for consideration and mine may not be selected. However, the reason I don’t have time to write more articles for public requests is because past submissions have led to loads of “private requests.” Now, I’m writing articles exclusively for customers with no competition from other writers – at decent prices.

There’s much more to how Constant-Content.com works than this blog post can possibly cover. For example, I didn’t even touch on the different license types, pricing strategies, topics that sell, or the article acceptance/rejection process.

How does Constant-Content work? I discuss it in greater detail in my inexpensive eBook, Celeste Stewart’s Secrets to Success on Constant-Content.com.

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• Constant-Content Success

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Tired of waiting forever for your Constant-Content.com articles to be reviewed? Ed over at Constant-Content.com announced this morning the addition of a review team to handle the increased load of daily article submissions. This is terrific news for any Constant-Content writer who has waited patiently – or impatiently as the case may be – for articles to be reviewed. Instead of one editor with a part-time assistant, Ed now oversees a team of reviewers. It looks like we can expect faster review times and more detailed rejection responses.

So let’s put those reviewers to work and show them what we’re capable of. How many articles do you plan on submitting this week?

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