What Can You Do to Improve Your AC Submissions?

If you've read the article titled Is Quality Writing Important on AC?, you may have left wondering, "What can I do to improve the quality of my AC writing?"

Writing courses and online classes are excellent long-term endeavors, but in the short term, there are things you can do to see immediate results.

Reread and Edit

The number one way to ensure you are submitting quality articles to AC is to reread them and edit accordingly. Make an effort to find and fix every mistake. For most writers, a freshly written piece needs to sit for twenty-four hours before they can spot mistakes in their own work. Two or more days is even better.

In the haste to produce as much paid content as possible for less than optimal money, editing and proofreading AC content is often overlooked. Many writers think AC will accept any content regardless of quality. This is not entirely true, and while AC guidelines may be far more lax than other sites, the result is declined submissions and low offers.

Spell-checking is obvious. Use it, but remember that spell-checking won't catch everything. You might be surprised at what spell-check sees as okay, or the ease of typing 'id' where 'is' should be. Even your errors may be spelled correctly.

Take advantage of the other tools your word processor provides. Use the thesaurus and dictionary options when you need to find a new way to say something or when you are unsure what the exact meaning of a word is. Dictionary look-ups help decipher the subtle differences, too, such as when 'complement' is more appropriate than 'compliment'.

In your haste to submit a high volume of work to increase offers, remember your work sits in queue for days. Submissions awaiting purchase can be edited until an offer is accepted. Take advantage of this by submitting articles to get the ball rolling, then returning to them for a quick proofread and editing after a day or two when the content is less fresh in your mind and errors are easier to spot.

There are times when something happens between proofreading and submission, or fields can't be spell-checked and you might not notice an error until after a piece is published. Articles can be edited after they are published by emailing AC support with the necessary corrections. This won't change an offer on a piece, but it does improve your portfolio and the AC site as a whole.

Keep in mind that one well written article may net double what a poorly written submission does. If you are not skilled at producing a lot of good quality quickly, focus your writing energy on producing one great article instead. Monetarily, the end result may be the same (or better).

Learn from other CP's

AssociatedContent has some very smart people submitting here. There are Content Producers with higher degrees, extensive writing experience, editing backgrounds, and those who are just plain good writers. Several of these people have written about improving writing and where to go for free writing courses. Still others have posted a myriad of articles on promoting AC content. Browse the AC library and tutorials for articles and resources that will help improve the quality of your writing.

Visit the AC Forum. The Forum at AC is where everyone comes together. There are several threads devoted to improving writing and promotion on AC. CP's with editing backgrounds are offering their services. Writers are supporting each other, helping to answer questions and freely sharing links and resources. The AC Forum is a great place to learn how to improve your writing and solicit feedback.

Stay Positive

Everyone makes mistakes. What separates good quality producers from poor quality producers is putting forth the extra effort to produce quality content to the best of your ability. This does not mean you have to naturally be better than every other writer, or even as good as everyone else. This simply means that everyone has potential, and with effort any article can be improved. AssociatedContent is a lenient community, the ideal place to grow and learn as a writer- complete with tutorials and support services at the ready.

Take advantage of the resources at AC. Improve your writing. Put the best, most professional quality face on your article submissions. Make more money, improve yourself and improve AC. AssociatedContent is one place where your extra effort benefits more than just you personally.