@Jenn, CC definitely seems like a solid alternative to content mills and the like for earning what your time is worth. Like I said, as I’m establishing my platform, building up my niche blog and trying to grow a client base, I could see writing articles for CC and / or responding for calls as a viable way to earn and potentially find clients during those early business stages.

@Celeste, I know you’ve got a solid history with CC, but do you think that you might start directing people to work more directly with you? I’m not sure if this would violate the CC TOC (which I wouldn’t encourage) but maybe in general to get people to work directly with you. You still have those middlemen fees, you’re not getting paid immediately (of course I don’t know what your standard billing policies are) and an external site has market share on your revenue–it seems like it could be hazardous. No matter how great it seems, I don’t think anyone could rely on a single external source to keep them afloat.

I know I could probably do better if I spent time on selling those articles to private clients, but sometimes I just don’t have time to devote to that sort of project.

Beside pricing really does vary by the client, the project’s scope, and other factors regardless of where the client came from.

In addition, clients using CC receive some value from the middle man. All articles go through an editorial review and plagiarism check before customers ever see them and the site offers a money back guarantee. Sure, clients can run their own CopyScape checks, but some don’t want to deal with stuff like that.

To give you an idea of the volume that I do on CC, that 2500 articles sold number mentioned in my first post isn’t really accurate. Most of my projects are submitted to client in batches of anywhere from ten to thirty to hundreds of articles at a time. So a single sale on CC is often for multiple articles. Many of those sales are for complete training manuals, white papers, and other large projects. So, yeah, I do a huge volume there.

Anyhow, the CC concept isn’t for everyone and I’m one of the exceptions rather than the norm, but it’s worked nicely for me.

Can you explain more about what you mean by “volume” when talking about buyer benefits? You can sell in volume to private clients just as easily, and they’d still be paying less per piece, so again I don’t see any benefit other than not wanting to worry about your own site (which you do anyway). I might be misunderstanding what you mean by volume here though, so feel free to enlighten me. It’s always good to know the logic behind the different ways writers choose to operate. And even though it’s not my cup of tea, it might benefit someone else to better understand it. :)

Yes, I adjust my prices with the 35% cut in mind. For example, if an article takes me an hour to write and I want to make $65 for my efforts, then I charge $100. I always consider how much I need to earn for the time spent as well as the client’s budget. From there, I mark my price up accordingly. That way, I get what I want, CC gets its fee, and the client receives an article that meets his needs. It’s win-win-win. Plus, by separating my fee and CC’s percentage, there’s no resentment that CC’s taking so much of “my” money. That’s because I never think of that portion of mine to begin with.

Can I ask you how you utilize the income from them? Do you use it as another income stream to stave off in-between client feast / famine stretches, or is Constant Content a bigger part of your business strategy?

Also, how do you account for the commission–do you simply increase your rate by 35%?

Thanks for stopping by. I would like to hear more about CC.