Increasing Your Freelance Income with Constant Content

I know I've sung the praises of Constant Content on my blog before (back on this post http://ravens-writing.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/making-money-with-constant-content.html from a few years ago), but I think this needs to be written for those of you who haven't tried the site for yourselves yet.

Basically, Constant Content is a marketplace site that lets you submit any article you want onto their site. You can write about absolutely anything at all! When you're done, you submit the article and you get to name your own price for your work. Buyers come and check out what's available and they buy the articles they like.

It sounds really easy, huh?

Unfortunately, I still get emails from freelance writers who simply can't get an article accepted. I also get emails asking for help from writers who submit articles and can't make a sale. Sadly, I also get emails from people who signed up for the site, but never got around to submitting anything. You can't sell anything if you don't submit something first!

So I figured I'd write this post to give you a bit of an idea how I manage to make so many regular sales on Constant Content every single DAY!

Requested Content

One of the easier ways to increase your chances of making more sales is to check out the 'Requested Content' section. You'll see three tabs across the top here. These are for Public Requests, Private Requests and Standing Orders. The Public Requests section shows you specific articles that customers want to buy. They tell you what topics they want and how much they're willing to pay. Write for these if you find topics that interest you.

Standing Orders

Sometimes the Standing Orders are great value. These are orders placed by the admin team at Constant Content for specific content that always sells well, but that they need more articles for. This is sometimes also because they expect large orders from certain clients. I tend to submit multiple articles to these regularly and they always sell very well at between $40 and $50 per 500 word article! Too easy!

Quality Counts

The editors at Constant Content are quite strict. They expect your articles to have completely correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Even the smallest mistake will get your article rejected. Be ultra-careful with your wording and ensure your syntax is correct or they'll pick up on these things too. So be sure to edit everything before you submit. Of course, as professional freelance writers you already do this before you submit any work to anyone, right?

Formatting

They want you to format your articles to their exact specifications before they'll even read them. This means you need to set your font to Times New Roman or Arial and it needs to be 12 point. If you're going to create a "Top 10" list, don't just start your article with the numbers. Actually include a short introductory paragraph, otherwise it will get rejected.

Writing Ideas

In the navigation bar on the left hand side of your Constant Content account is a link for 'Writing Ideas'. Visit this section often, as it shows you what articles have sold recently and how much a customer paid for them. This is a great way to see what topics are selling and what's popular right now.

Build Your Portfolio

One of the biggest factors to how many sales you'll make on Constant Content is building up a portfolio of work. The more articles you have available for sale, the more likely it is that someone will buy something from you. As I tend to make regular sales, my portfolio keeps shrinking. Those sold articles become unavailable once someone buys them, leaving fewer and fewer available articles for customers to buy. This means I need to find a bit of time at the end of each working day to write one more article to submit to the marketplace to keep my portfolio growing. I made a commitment to myself that once my work was done for paying clients each day I would write just one more article to add to the marketplace to keep that portfolio growing.  The bigger your portfolio is, the more sales you'll make in the end.

Patience

Yes, it's true. I have some articles sitting in the marketplace that have been there for a few months. Some sell within hours of being approved. The key with this particular market is patience. It DOES take several days to get articles approved by the editors (unless you're submitting an article for a request - then it can take 24 hours or so). It DOES sometimes take a bit of time to find the right buyer for your work. But if you're diligent about submitting more articles to the marketplace regularly, you'll find that something is always selling and you get paid regularly as a result. Besides, those pieces that end up sitting there for months will eventually sell too, so you still get paid in the end.

Be Diverse

When I first starting submitting articles to this site, I stuck to the topics I really love to write about. This meant most of my portfolio was in the same one or two categories. One day I was writing about a brand new topic for one of my clients and I found it enjoyable. When the order was finished, I wrote two more articles on the same topic to submit to Constant Content. Both of those sold within hours of being accepted. This taught me that it's always a good idea to spread your articles across a broad range of different categories and topics. You also want to be sure you have a variety of prices on your work too. I have some quick, short pieces sitting at $25 per article and I have more highly focused pieces sitting at $150 per article, with others priced somewhere in between. This attracts the more focused buyers at the more expensive end, but it also increases your chances of quick, easy sales at the cheaper end. You appeal to more buyers that way, which means more profit for you in the end!

Seasonal Topics

It's surprisingly easy to sell lots of articles around holiday themes, but so many writers overlook this avenue completely. Halloween articles, Christmas articles, Thanksgiving articles, Easter articles - these things sell like crazy. Admittedly you need to keep your prices competitive in these types of seasonal niches, but you'll make plenty of sales very quickly so it all adds up in your favor.

Writer Pools

Constant Content does have a private order section that is reserved for writers who ALWAYS submit high quality content for requested orders. After you've had 10 articles accepted, you may be eligible for the private writer pools. I earn more money from direct orders in the writer pools than I do from random sales you see in the requested content section. These orders tend to pay higher than regular orders and they're almost always accepted without the strict editorial rules of general articles.  Keep your quality high and respond to requested content orders. Before long, you'll be invited to the writer pools that are seriously so profitable you'll wonder what you did before!!

Pricing

It's important to work out your pricing points carefully on this site. There are some highly focused niche topics that will easily fetch $150 or $200 per article. However, there are also topics where the buyers won't pay any more than $10 or $20 per article. Work out what you want to be paid for the word count you submit and check out other articles in your categories. You can see their word counts and pricings very clearly by doing a simple search on the site.

Remember, Constant Content takes a whopping 35% fee off the price you charge for your articles. So if you charge $100 for your work, they're going to take a $35 fee out of your sale price. This will leave $65 in your account. Always take this fee into account when you're setting up your prices.

Payment

Constant Content pays twice a month in US Dollars through Paypal - but ONLY if you set your account correctly. The default setting in your account is set at monthly payments. You need to click the link on the left hand side of your account page that says 'Edit My Account'. On this page is an option to change your payment frequency to bi-monthly instead. Remember, you must have made more than $5 in sales to reach pay-out minimums.

There you have it. Those are my tips for making more freelance writing income through Constant Content. While it might not make you a full-time income, it's certainly an easy way to get your income up every month without much effort - and that's always a good thing.

Have fun :)