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.
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.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the first site:
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?
