www.associatedcontent.com The writers there get paid between $3 and $20. Whats your opinion of the writings there?
Hey, qwestcommunications, My thoughts on this resource...Well, what is impressive at first sight is good categorization of all the articles there. To be honest, on many other article directories, it is not like that. Quantity of content is, I would say, more than enough. As regards quality - I've read some of the content there and definitely, quality is ok. Not much creative or too, let's say, stylish, but still nice and just of standard quality. About the rates - a payment of $3-20 is too undefined to me. $3-20 per what?
They are more than an article database. I also like some of the stuff there. They deal with some latest and breaking news. The writes are paid unlike article directories. The rate is per article; I forget exactly what determines the pay scale, though.
Yes, I know they are more than an article directory. But when I comment on their categorization, it is fair analogy to compare them with article databases - they do look alike. Payment per article is weird to me...
I have only been a member there for a month, but it was quick to become one of my frequent stops on the web. I usually go by there a few times a week. I don't know about the 3-20 rate. Most of my submissions are news oriented, which is a $5 flat rate. The two things I added that weren't news were both $6.xx but I have a couple of more pending that are a minimum of $10 because of some special content request they had. They always pay promptly, so I can't complain about that. The thing about them is that you can't just go there to grab content, which I'm sure some people have done. Some of it is sold to them on an exclusive basis so that it pays a higher amount. My guess is that the majority of the content was marked as non-exclusive though, so if you contact the content producer directly you can probably get a good deal on the articles. The quality of articles varies. Most of what I have read there has been good quality. But then, that's a somewhat subjective area, so what I consider to be good quality may be rubbish in your eyes.
I agree, I think the quality there is pretty good. It just goes to show writers that ask for $5-10 an article should not be dismissed readily and branded as "copycats". Remember, a lot of these writers have become very fluent and writing has become a second nature to the, They are bale to write quickly and concisely without tremendous effort. This explains why they are able to charge pretty low rates, not to mention comopetition from low wage conuntries.
Many of those accepting $5 or so per article there aren't writing exclusively for them - the articles are created elsewhere, and that's just "extra" on top of their original income. For example, not long ago, I sold a short piece for around $250, at my non-exclusive online-only rate. So I'm able to monetize that elsewhere... I got $7 for popping it over to AC (which I use once in a blue moon just for things that I've already published non-exclusively), and I use it on my own site(s) if it's relevant (usually is, since I specialize my niches), and make a good bit more that way. There's not usually much there that's "outstanding" writing-wise, but there's some good information and a nice mix. More than anything though, it's an interesting way to meet a few other writers - and networking opportunities in that sense are usually a good thing. It's definitely better than taking $5 from a webmaster and giving up all rights, like many writers do though... you can easily make more than that just selling them non-exclusively, so you can continue to monetize them elsewhere.
I think AC wants articles that are for their exclusive use. Why would they pay someone that publishes and resells the same article on many different places? That won't be good for that article because it would reduce the posisbility of ranking well on search engines as it would not be an unique piece of writing. I am not too knowledgebale about AC, but I think it would be pretty bad practice on their part to have articles that are not unique.
You get to choose whether you'll sell them exclusive, or non-exclusive, rights. They pay a little more for exclusive, but I'd never sell at those rates and give up my rights, so I only post the occasional non-exclusive piece (as many do), when I've already got the piece indexed on my own site, or have sold it non-exclusively elsewhere. It's just a simple way to monetize that work a little bit more, and to have it easily stored in one place to refer to. If you publish it to tons of article directories, they might very well reject the article for being posted in too many places. They definitely take non-exclusive content though, and I make more for that than I see most people here willing to pay even when they demand full rights. Frankly, if they demanded only unique articles, they'd lose quite a big group of their userbase, b/c they simply couldn't afford them anymore. Accepting both gives people wanting a few more dollars an incentive to publish exclusively, while still allowing them to grow their content enormously faster by keeping non-exclusive content. They might have an easier time with non-exclusive work, b/c they have a rigid format to follow, which includes starting with a summary (if memory serves me correctly), which you likely wouldn't have on your originally-published copy (giving at least the start of the piece a different appearance to SEs - not sure how effective it is, but they seem to be doing ok business-wise).
I thought the same thing, that AC wouldn't pay much for non exclusive, but I was wrong. My last article there (usually, I just write something for them "exclusively")I really wanted to hang on to, like Jhmattern said, I wanted to sell it somewhere else. It is about spiritually abusive churches so I submitted it non exclusive along with two exclusive work from home articles. My non exclusive fetched $8.90. (Didn't know what was up with the 90 cents...lol) but the exclusives were $8.20 and $8.40. I was very surprised that the non exclusive fared better than the exclusives. However, I have been a member there for a long time, but don't write as often as I could due to having my own clients, etc. Every now and then I throw something that way. But don't misjudge the non-exclusives! Charisse
Oh, I was told that Google owns AC...I have been too busy to really check it out and see if it is true or not.
I don't know if they own them or not, but they seem to treat them ok. I come across articles from AC a few times a week when browsing through google news.
Yes, Associated Content is an occasional pitstop for many writers that want to earn a few extra bucks on old, previously published articles. From what I have heard writers do not really get that much extra for "exclusives" -- but I'm sure there are exceptions.