How to Track Your Sales on Associated Content

Content Producers for Associated Content often have no idea what their average pay per article is. While the Content Producer "My Content Page" does list all articles sold and their sales price, the information is merely a list. For those Content Producers who desire more detail, here's a do-it-yourself guide to track your sales on Associated Content.

First, open a blank Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or other brand such as the free Google Spreadsheet. Next, go to the "Payment Information" link on the "My Content" tab. Use your mouse to highlight all the sales data displayed and use the copy command of or choose file/edit/copy from the browser's menu bar. Go back to the spreadsheet and paste the data into it by using or file/edit/paste.

You will now have some data to work with. For example, you can go to the bottom of the list and enter the following formula to figure out the average pay per article:
=AVERAGE(__:__)
Note: fill in the blanks with the starting cell and ending cell of the data you'd like the average on.

Or to find out how many articles you have you can enter:
=COUNT(__:__)
Note: fill in the blanks with the starting cell and ending cell of the data you'd like to count.
The easiest way to get a quick formula is to highlight the column of data and look at the bottom right corner of the screen. Here you can right-click on the display that says "NUM" with your mouse and change the options for viewing average, count, max, minimum and sum. The results will display in the bottom right.

I like to track sales in other ways too. I like to see how much I'm making per word as well as per hour. I also track sales by category and Content Manager. This way I can see which categories and Content Managers tend to pay more so that I can better tailor my future submissions. Another way I track sales is by clout level. This way I can see how my average price changes as I move up the clout index. To track sales these ways you need to add more data to the spreadsheet.

First add the following column headings across the top of the spreadsheet: Category, Content Manager, Word Count, Hours, Clout, $/Word and $/hour. You may not know how much time you spent, the word count or what clout level you were at for your past articles. Instead, use these features for future articles.

To track your sales on Associated Content by word and hour, you will need to enter a couple of simple formulas. If you're using Excel and copied your data in and added the columns I suggested, the '$ amount' should be in the "C" column, 'word count' in the "J" column, the '$/word' should occupy the "M" column and the '$/hour' should be in the "N" column. If not, substitute the appropriate column letters in the formula.

The formula for calculating your sales by word (on spreadsheet row 2) is:
=C2/J2 (or $ amount/word count)

The formula for calculating your sales by hour (on spreadsheet row 2) is:
=C2/K2 (or $ amount/hours)

Simply copy these formulas down the columns. If no data is in the J, K, or C columns a "#DIV/0!" will display indicating a null value. This will disappear once you have data to calculate.

Another neat thing you can do to track sales is to use data filtering or create a Pivot table to further analyze the data. By doing this, you can view and analyze the data by Content Manager, Clout Level, Category etc. To learn how to make Pivot Tables see my article on the subject.

I also enter the date submitted and what rights were sold. That way I can exclude non-exclusive sales or non-payment sales as needed.

As you continue submitting to Associated Content, make it a habit to update your spreadsheet so you can track your sales. It's a simple step and helps in determining your productivity.