Is Associated Content Worth Your Time?

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Is Associated Content Worth Your Time?

Posted on October 21st, 2009 in Online Writing by WriteEditSeek

After a few weeks on Associated Content, Constant Content, Demand Studios, and Suite101, I would like to share my initial experience of these sites with you. This is the first article in a series of four articles that closely examines each of these sites. This article takes a look at Associated Content.

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It’s early in the game for me at Associated Content, Constant Content, Demand Studios, and Suite101, and I’ve experienced ups and downs with each of these sites. I’m going to give a run-down of my foray into writing for each of the sites, one by one. I’d love it if you’d share you experience by commenting on these series of articles for the benefit of all of us.

Associated Content

Associated Content is appealing because it offers upfront payments and page-view residuals. I was thinking this would be absolutely delicious because it’s like the setup here at Triond, where you earn income from page views, with the added bonus that you can get upfront payments. But not so fast there, bucko! My dreams of earning a few more dollars quickly have been dashed.

I submitted one article, Amsterdam and the Red Light District: Prostitution, Drugs and All That’s Taboo in the Netherlands’ Most Infamous City last week. In order to get an upfront payment, you have to agree to give Associated Content exclusive or non-exclusive rights to your article. If you sell exclusive rights, you cannot republish your article elsewhere, ever. If you sell non-exclusive rights, you can republish your article elsewhere after it’s first been published on Associated Content. In other words, to qualify to sell non-exclusive rights, the article you are submitting must not have been published previously–same deal as Triond.

Associated Content purportedly pays up to $20 in upfront payments, the higher payments going for exclusive rights. I offered to sell exclusive rights to my Amsterdam article and was offered an upfront payment of $2.30. Not much for all the effort I put into the article, but I thought perhaps I’d make enough on the article with page-view residuals, so I went ahead and accepted the offer. I wonder if I would have been offered an upfront payment at all if I would have offered non-exclusive rights.

Articles aren’t published right away on Associated Content like they are here on Triond. It can take up to several weeks for content to be reviewed and to go live on the site. It takes the longest for articles for which you’d like an upfront payment to be reviewed.

Associated Content pays $1.50 per 1,000 page views. My Amsterdam article currently has 4 views after one day. That’s pretty pathetic, even though I did promote it on various sites. I’m not sure why my success is so dismal so far on Associated Content. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t built a network of friends like I have here on Triond.

Your pay per 1,000 views goes up slightly on Associated Content after you reach a certain “clout” level. Clout level is dependent on your total number of page views for all of your articles. Once you reach 50,001 page views, your pay increases 5 cents per 1,000 views. The cap is $2.00 per 1,000 views once you reach 1,000,000 views.

One thing that really irks me about Associated Content is that once an article that has been submitted for upfront payment is published, it seems quite difficult or impossible to fix typos, add links, or make any other changes to it. From what I’ve read on the Associated Content forums, you have to email Associated Content and try to persuade them to make the changes you are requesting, and often times they won’t. So, I guess the lack of the apostrophe in Netherlands in the subtitle of my article will have to remain. I’m learning to love typos!

Another limitation of Associated Content is you can’t place your photos next to the text that you would like them to illustrate. I enjoy writing articles and I’ve had a lot of success with articles that use images as the primary focus. (I think these types of articles are perfect for the Internet, too, because it’s such a visual medium.) So, for instance, it wouldn’t be possible for me to write an article like Hollywood Copy Cats: 14 Insanely Funny Celebrity Look-Alike Kitties on Associated Content.

Summing Up

I’m giving Associated Content a thumbs down. One of the biggest issues for me is that writers can’t easily tweak articles once they’ve been published. Typos and other issues inevitably rear their ugly heads–sometimes it sort of seems like a game whack a mole with problems–but I guess you must learn to live with your original article if you want to write for Associated Content. From what I see, you also aren’t able to go back and add links to already published content to promote new content. Secondly, the upfront payments don’t seem substantial enough to sell exclusive rights to your work on Associated Content. Thirdly, I don’t enjoy waiting around for days or weeks for my articles to be published. Triond has spoiled us in that regard. Lastly, I hate that photos can’t be the primary focus of articles published on Associated Content.

What has your experience been like on Associated Content?

You might also like the other articles in this series:

Is Constant Content Worth Your Time?

Is Demand Studios Worth Your Time?

Is Suite101 Worth Your Time?

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13 Responses to “Is Associated Content Worth Your Time?”

ashan1614
October 21st, 2009 at 8:38 am

I haven’t given Associated Content a shot. I’m thinking that, after reading this, I won’t.
N. Lloyd Andrews
October 21st, 2009 at 8:42 am

Interesting analysis WES. I got something of an eye-opener about content aggregators through the blog of a freelance writer. He directed my attention to this <a href="http://wordcountwriter.com/2009/05/21/freelancers-do-not-write-for-content-aggregators/
“>Blog Post by Tim Beyers.

I wonder if any of it is worth the time.
DeborahLawwill
October 21st, 2009 at 8:57 am

I submitted an article at associated content. It took them a week to review it and I was only paid 2.24. After that I decided it really wasn’t worth it, unless DS had no good article titles that day and even still. That’s a really sad pay rate. The article was not at all badly written and it was about SEO.
frootbat31
October 21st, 2009 at 10:09 am

I joined Associated Content some time ago and found them to be better than Triond, only because of the upfront payments. Its more than what I can expect from networking and being obnoxious about my writing on Triond.
I also find the success for online writers falls under the concept of keywords. Remember the audience here is the people being able to find your article via the search engines, and that means keywords.
I think any serious writer needs to take the risk of rejection and get out there to submit to real publications such as magazines, newspapers, and publishing companies. That’s where the real money is.
cassandra antares
October 21st, 2009 at 11:16 am

On some of my articles Associated Content placed the links in ads. I also got discovered in several magazines. I am still making residual earnings off these helps. But as you said, I can not post these articles elsewhere if they were upfront payments. However, I just submit there and here at Triond so it doesn’t matter.
Vikram Chhabra
October 21st, 2009 at 11:30 am

Once again valuable information. Thanks!
Frosty Johnson
October 21st, 2009 at 12:54 pm

Thanks for the info, wont bother with them then
lillyrose
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:16 am

Its all very confusing, frustrating and disappointing! I haven’t heard of Associated content before, I may still be tempted top give them a look.
Melody Arcamo Lagrimas
October 24th, 2009 at 8:17 am

I have an AC account too, and have a lot of friends there already. Since I’m not qualified for upfront payments, my earnings there are quite more or less similar to those of my Triond articles. And my articles get published as soon as i submit them, much faster than here on Triond usually.

I have to disagree about the editing part too. You can easily fix your articles by clicking on the e in your content list, and the changes are instantly applied, without having to provide for a reason of the fix.
WriteEditSeek
October 24th, 2009 at 11:41 am

Hi, Melody. Thanks for your input. It seems you can edit the articles you submit for page view payments but not the articles you submit for upfront payments. I have no “e” next to those.
Valerie Curtiss
October 26th, 2009 at 1:20 pm

I submitted an article to AC, last week, haven’t heard back yet, can you turn their offer down and submit to another like Triond?

Loved your article, very informative and prepared me for what may come up if they get back to me.
WriteEditSeek
October 26th, 2009 at 3:21 pm

Hi, Valerie — Thanks for your comment. Yes, you can reject AC’s offer and submit your article to another site. I’m curious to see how you like AC. Let me know.
Karen Gross
November 12th, 2009 at 12:43 am

I have submitted 3 articles on AC, and have earned an estimated 2 cents. They have 3 levels of copyright articles, but the first 2 are only available for citizens of the United States. Since I live in Canada, I can only submit articles for the lowest paying option. I can’t get upfront paying articles.

I have tried Bukisa, and I like that I can submit my old Triond articles and give them a second chance. I have earned about 7 cents there.

I have not earned much on Triond, but I think that the community is worth writing there. I’ve been at Triond for almost 2 years, but I am still only earning 2 or 3 bucks a month.