Writing for Other Websites Along with Associated Content

As you're likely to know about Associated Content, I'll talk about submitting to www.constant-content-com and www.suite101.com first.

Constant-Content

You may never sell anything you submit to Constant Content and then again, you may do very well. The great thing registering for Constant Content does is sending registered writers notices of what they call Public Requests.

Responding to a Public Request is the way to go. After logging in, go to the requests section of your home page. You will be taken to a long list of requests, not in any discernable order. I use the edit function to reach the word I'm looking for. I recently thought about responding to a Public Request on Watches. I typed in Watch and came to the request. There I clicked on Q&A to send a note to the requester about whether the opportunity was still open. I quickly go a response of yes, so I sat down, did some research and wrote the article to the length he wanted. Then I went through the CC process of submitting, did submit the article, went back to the list of Public Requests, found watches again, and Q&A'ed the requester that I had submitted an article to CC for approval and, assuming it was approved, would be willing to do one rewrite if he wanted.

Why was all this effort worthwhile? Because the price offered for full rights to my article was $100. Full rights means the requester can use the info any way he or she wants to, revise it, and take credit for it whatever. In this case, that's what the requester wanted. Other possibilities are Usage rights (one time, not exclusive) and an intermediate category.

Does Constant Content have a downside? Yes, at least two. First of all the editor who reads your submitted article may be very picky and not necessarily tell you why your article is rejected. So you can go about "fixing" your submission and still the article is declined. I experienced this a half dozen times before my first article was accepted.

Besides, although I'm only guessing I think very few submissions to Constant Content that are not responses to Public Requests or Private are bought. Still, if you have listed an AC article as non-exclusive, you can put it on Constant Content too. Maybe after you have a track record at CC, someone will pick up on it.

I've found reading articles by Constant Content's top producers an excellent way to improve my own writing. There is also a helpful Forum. Constant Content is now accepting photos as well as articles but at this point whether the photos will find a market isn't clear.

Suite 101

I tried to be accepted as a Suite 101 writer but was not accepted even though I have taught writing in a university, have print and internet experience and read at least ten articles on the Suite 101 site before submitting my application. Following my initial try, I received a note telling me to go into more detail. I then spent four hours tailoring a resume, telling them what I could write about and so on. I still received a response saying no. Four possible generic reasons were listed, ranging from mechanical errors, their inability to check out credentials, and a-one-size-fits-all about the sample article submitted not fitting their site. Ouch.

I wrote to ask if whether I could reapply at a later date. No answer.

The upside: Suite 101 pays more than I receive when I submit to AC, $10 for each of the ten articles a writer commits to write, then $12 later on. The quality of the articles Suite 101 publishes is high. As a result of my experience I suggest asking questions about the application process by email before applying. May you may have better luck than I did to this Canada-based site. Incidentally, I couldn't attach samples of work published on AC, possibly the reason I was rejected. Maybe I could have circumvented the problem by scanning a printout as an attachment.

Associated Content

Unlike the other two sites, AC is keyword driven: I have published about two dozen AC articles, more in the past than currently because I used to be paid $10-12 per article, now I get offers of about half. I do get extra payments worth mentioning on two articles.

The upside of AC, other than low pay, is that it accepts almost everything that fits the guidelines. That is also a downside. A writer can get sloppy. My bottom line: with the drop in AC payments and the possibility of selling to other websites, I now sell all articles to AC as non-exclusive.