Recycle Your Articles for Profit

Are you tired of writing for next to nothing on the Internet? When I first investigated freelancing writing as a way of making money online I wasn't impressed with what I found. The sites I found either required me to bid against writers who were prepared to write for 1 cent a word or wouldn't pay me at all because I don't live in the US! However I recently got referred to a site which I hadn't come across before: Constant Content.

Constant content is effectively an online agency for writers. Writers submit articles, blog posts or reviews to the site. Once the article is accepted, an extract of it is available on their site for potential purchasers. Purchasers pay via checkout system and download the full text of the article. Writers are paid via paypal once they have reached the $50 minimum payout level. The key difference at Constant Content though, at what be give it a second look was that the writers set their own prices,and the prices being set appear reasonable return for the effort required.

You have three options on the rights you sell your content with:

usage rights: is when the purchaser buys the article for a single use but it continues to be available for subsequent purchasers. The article must be published unaltered and complete, except that the publisher may add links to the article.

unique rights: the purchaser buys the article outright. The article is withdrawn from the constant content, but the article must be published unaltered and complete, except that the publisher may add links to the article.

full rights: the purchaser buys the article outright and also has the rights to change the content, resell the content, take credit for writing, etc.

Typical prices suggested by Constant Content are:

Usage Unique

100-500 words $5 - $10 $36 - $60

600-800 words $10-20 $72-96

1000-1200 words $30-40 $120-144

1500-2000 words $60-100 $180-240

Of the is prices that author receives 65%, the rest goes to Constant Content as their commission.

To date I have published over 70 hubs on hubpagss: most of them make me no money. Some of those that make me no money here are quite OK articles they are just on highly competitive subjects and I haven't the time to promote them to get them ranking higher in the search engines. I also have squidoo.com lenses and articles on sites such as ezinearticles.com all of which are free content sites.

I believe that if you have articles published on Helium you also retain copyright and are allowed to re-publish these articles.

Articles that are already published on the web can only be offered on Constant Content with usage rights. It is not against the Terms of Service of either HubPages or Squidoo or Ezinearticles to re-use material first published on their sites elsewhere. So without violated the Terms of Service of any of these sites you can potentially add your articles to Constant Content and maybe sell their usage rights at $5-$50 dollars.

Sound too good to be true? Maybe.The other side of Constant Content is that every article you submit will need to be approved by an editor: a real live human being. It can take up to three days for your article to be reviewed. Longer over a weekend or holiday.

Constant content will not accept the following content: fiction, poetry and personal accounts. According their Writers Guidelines;

"All articles must be free of grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors and contain no awkward wording or sentence structure issues"

"Articles must contain introductions and conclusions in addition to the body and contain information that is useful to the reader".

"Blog posts are still "articles," but in a less-formal style and may be in first person voice. They still contain a beginning, middle, and end, and offer something useful to the reader."

The editor will reject you if you don't follow the guidelines to the letter. Brush up on the usages of their/there, to/too, affect/effect its/it's before submitting. Understand where the the " and ' belong in a grammatically correct sentence. If you get rejected three times for poor grammer and usage your account is banned. They are really serious about their editorial standards, which is good because it gives the site a good quality standard, but a little daunting if you are used to the "publish anything" world of hubpages.

I'd suggest when you first join don't dump 25 articles on them in an hour or so. Submit only one or two articles until you are confident that you understand the writing standards required.

Yes I think you can. It won't happen overnight, the advice I have been given is to publish articles often and that most buyers are looking for full rights or at least unique rights.

You can also develop an ongoing relationship with buyers who can then submit "private requests" to you. Constant content will still get their 35% cut but you are writing knowing that you have a buyer. You can also keep an eye on what has been sold recently to have an understanding of what is selling and for what price. If an article doesn't sell you can always withdrawal and sell it or use it elsewhere.

My Experience to Date -UPDATED

• I've sold a couple of articles written for a public request (both to the same buyer) - sold each for $30 for 300 words: I got $19.50 each. The buyer states their budget so I just priced my articles at the top end of their range. The articles had to include about 4 keywords so made them have a keyword density of around 2-3% for each word - which wasn't asked for but may have got me the sale.

• I also wrote another long article for a public request which hasn't sold - the buyer doesn't appear to have bougth anyone's article though - I am not too worried because I can use the article elsewhere if I need to.

There is a helpful forum and I am assured by those I trust that this site is legit and definitly pays what you are owed. Some comments on the forum suggest that they are unhappy about paying the 35% of commission but I personally would rather have 65% of something than 100% of nothing! Oh and my first submissions got past the grammar police so I am pleased with that! I'll update this hub with progress as it happens!

The Hard Sell

If you are interested in writing for Constant Content please sign up using one of the links in this hub. If you subsequently sell articles there I will get a commission from the Constant Content's fee, this won't affect the amount that you earn.

Oh and don't dump twenty odd articles on them when you first join. Submit just one or two until you get feedback and approval and understand the requirements of the site.

Drop me a comment below: have you sold through Constant Content or similar sites what was your experience?