A Winning Strategy for Selling Your Freelance Writing

Writers like to write, but they also like to make money. Over the past few months I have assembled this winning strategy for maximizing income from your writing. This strategy is primarily concerned with nonfiction articles ranging from 400-1200 words. Usually these articles are intended for internet publishing, and may be search engine optimized. Articles written for hard copy, fiction, or specialized internet articles such as tutorials should not follow this program. With this strategy, I have an average income per article of about $12 plus 30 cents residual income per month.

To understand this strategy, it is important to understand the differing missions of the three companies who will buy or market your work.
Constant Content is a marketplace where writers sell work directly to publishers. Constant Content makes money by taking a 35% commission from each sale. Authors upload articles, which are subjected to a stringent editorial review. Then the articles are placed up for sale. Constant Content polices buyers to ensure they are complying with copyright rules. The site allows authors to receive the most money for their work: about $12 for usage rights up to $50 for full rights after commission.

Associated Content makes money by hosting a large article library on its website. Writers are paid an upfront amount for their articles, usually ranging from $3-$7. Advertisements are sold on each page. Unlike Triond, Associated Content keeps all of the advertising revenue. However, AC does provide a modest page view bonus. For every 1,000 page views, the author receives $1.50. This continues in perpetuity, although most authors can expect their page views to drop significantly after a few months. Viewers are brought to AC articles primarily through search engines like Google. Additional page views are driven to the article through social networking sites, RSS feeds, and through searches on the AC site.

Triond does not pay authors upfront. Instead, authors receive 50% of the advertising revenue generated by the article. Articles are not regularly displayed on the Triond website. Instead, the company generates custom batches of web articles for third party customers. Customers receive dynamic (continually changing) content through Triond in exchange for turning over a significant revenue share. In terms of money received by authors, Triond offers the "longest tail" of income. This is because your article may be displayed for a long period of time, if it has high keyword content. Most authors will find that a handful of their articles bring in the bulk of the money. There is no way to tell which articles will succeed, so upload your entire portfolio once it is old enough.

Month 1- Constant Content Only
Constant Content will deliver the most money for your work. Web publishers are interested in getting as highly ranked on search engines as possible. One of the most important factors in high search engine ranking is being the first publisher of material. For the first month after finishing your article, list it for sale only on Constant Content. Most buyers will do a quick Google search for your article. If they don't find anything, they will pay large amounts of money to be the first to publish it.

Constant Content allows authors to list their work for any price they want. Also, they can choose prices for three different copyright categories. Usage rights allow the buyer to publish the article one time, but the author is able to sell the article again elsewhere. Full Rights is when the buyer purchases the article outright. The author cannot sell it again or claim authorship in the future.

Price your articles at about 3-6 cents per word, depending on how popular the topic is. For a 600 word article, this means about $24. Set the Full Rights price at just under double the Usage rights. Constant Content offers a Unique copyright, but I suggest you avoid it by entering zero in that field.

Constant Content allows buyers to request articles from all authors. This is a great way to get article ideas. If a buyer likes your work a lot, they can directly contract with you through Constant Content. Only about 40% of my articles submitted to Constant Content have sold. However, I have earned a little less than twice as much money from Constant Content as I have from other publishing sites combined.
If your article is listed for sale at Constant Content for a month but has not sold, it is time to move to the next step. Further, if your article has sold usage rights only, you can proceed to this step. If a buyer purchases full rights, your article has ended its journey at Step 1. Don't be concerned, as you will have brought in as much as $50 for your work!

Month 2-4: Associated Content and Constant Content
For the next three months, leave your article for sale on Constant Content. You may want to drop the price by about a third. You should also remove the option to buy the article a Full Rights, since you will be publishing your articles on Associated Content in this step. Buyers can purchase Usage rights more than one time, although this is a fairly rare event that occurs when publishers want your article more for information purposes than search engine ranking.

The next destination for your article should be Associated Content. Most readers of this article will already know about AC, so I'll dispense with too much description of the site. Authors should submit their articles to AC with non-exclusive rights. This ensures that your article will be saleable over on Constant Content and later on Triond. Take advantage of all of AC's tools for promoting your article, since your long-term income is dependent on page views.

Month 5 and Beyond: Associated Content and Triond
The last stop for your article should be Triond. Triond will place your article all over the internet. This destroys its value to buyers on Constant Content. You can leave your article on Constant Content, but it is very unlikely it will be purchased again. If you choose to remain on Constant Content, consider severely reducing your prices.

The extra exposure for your articles will not affect your Associated Content bottom line. AC has already paid you upfront for the right to publish your article. Your page views have probably significantly dropped over the past three months, but you will continue to receive page views from search engines and internal AC promotion. Search engines will already have recognized your article appeared on AC before it appeared on a Triond site.

Triond won't earn you much money. Chances are that you'll earn 5-50 cents per month per article. However, it is a far better site than Helium because you are not expected to actively participate in the site after your article is submitted. Think of Triond as a bucketshop for your work. Most of the value for your article has been extracted by Constant Content and Associated Content. But you can squeeze a couple more dollars out of it by submitting it to Triond. Don't even bother paying attention to your articles' performance on Triond. Just smile when they deposit money into your Paypal account or send you a check.