An idea, would appreciate your input

Hello,

I have been a writer for a long time, and have recently set up my website for selling my services, and articles.

I have this idea, for an article pool where I can put up my articles and let webmasters for a (Monthly?) fee download it. It would be closely monitored and any article that is downloaded x(Value yet to be determined) amount of times, would be removed and replaced by another in that category.

Would there be a demand for a service like this?
What do you think? I have been playing around with this idea for a while now, but I keep asking myself if it is worth dedicating my time to it.

Would you as a webmaster join such a service?

Any input is highly appreciated.

Thx in advance.

 

Here are a few thoughts about this system

1] Demand may depend on the monthly fee.
2] After an article has been downloaded one time, it's value/demand will greatly decrease, since the article is no longer unique for search engine purposes.
3] Possibility of manipulation/fraud. I download the same article x times to trigger the next article which I download x times to get another article which I ........ well you get the point. So I get a large number of unique articles if all goes well. My expense doesn't increase since it is a fixed monthly fee.

 

1] I know that the fee is an important factor, what would be a good amount?
2] I realize that. I see on here in the services section often articles are limited to 10 copies. Would that be a good limit?
3] The number of downloads per user can easily be controlled. Simple script that limits one download per IP.

 

Are you talking like an article membership website in which members pay monthly to access your articles? That wouldn't be a bad idea .... although you will find the occasional user who will abuse this and post your articles everywhere on the internet claiming it to be his own work =P

 

If you're going to do it, pay careful attention to the rights you give for the content. If you're to retain ownership, then it will probably lessen the buyer value, but selling all rights gives people something to talk about. They get fresh articles that they can claim as their own for whatever purpose.

And yes, you will have those who are dishonest and try to scam, but that comes with every business. You have to just limit your clientele.

 

Many websites, including the New York Times, offer a summary of their content so people wanting to read the stories in full need to pay a membership.

You might implement this idea in your site posting a summary of your articles and linking to a buy button to get such content.

 

Great input. Generally when I sell an article I sell it with all rights that go with it. Exclusive is not an option as it could be downloaded x amount of times, but other then that the members could use it as they see fit. I would simply write more to refill the pool with fresh content. That limits abuse somewhat too, the only abuse I can think of i people claiming to have written it themselves. That by itself is not something I lose sleep over

@ Mystique: That is a good idea, only you are referring to regular selling. I am thinking about a membership based project. I don't see how what you described could be implemented in a membership environment.

 

I believe you could implement such idea as a downloadable article vault accessible only from inside your membership area and update items on a regular basis so members can find fresh content on a regular basis.

 

Kraven2: You could post summaries to get people to sign up. When they see more and more fresh article summaries, they'll realise they might want to be part of the show.

 

Excellent feedback folks, I appreciate it!

Seeing that we're discussing how to set it up, I reckon the general consensus is that there is a market for such a pool.
Am I correct?
At this point I am not worrying about how to get people to sign up, more with the question if people would see the advantages of such an article pool. Setting it up isn't rocket science, that will be easy enough.

So you all reckon its worth setting up?

That is my main dilemma

 

Not a bad idea. I think you might want to look at offering a credits system. Kind of like Stockxpert or iStockPhoto. This would discourage downloading content that people won't actually use (because you don't want to waste a $1, $2, $3 credit on an article that you'll download and not use), AND it would help accountability on your behalf. That way, for instance, one article may be downloaded only 5 times, and then taken off sale. For example, each user would pay $2 (so you will get $10 for each one that sells 5 times) and thus they can spin it for uniqueness, and pay less.

 

The short answer is: Yes, I think there is a market for that.

 

EXERCICES DE TRANSFORMATEUR ;
bac-ste.blogspot.com/2009/10/exercices-de-transformateur_18.html

 

Ehm, make your own thread dude. This is not even on topic

 

Now there is an idea I can use. The CMS I am using for my site comes with such a feature included. Thx a lot, this is real useful info!

 

now that the thread has been here for a long time, could we hear from the originator of this post what has been his/her personal experience?

 

The OP just did, in the post above yours

In addition to that, here's an idea: have the "Members-Only" area show snippets of 60-80 words in a watermarked JPEG, so you can't just copy and paste those "preview" words.

Good luck!

 

You could post summaries to get people to sign up