UPDATE: A lot has changed at Constant-Content since I first posted this website review, as Jade Dragon was kind enough to point out in the comments (by the way, I strongly recommend his blog: it's a good one). The new pay out level is $5, making it extremely easy to make pay out each and every month. Also, your affiliate commission has been moved down to 5% from 10% - although they make even more sales then when this review was written, so I've seen minimal drop off in affiliate income. That's it for now, and I still strongly recommend Constant-Content as a great place for beginning or part time writers.
ORIGINAL CONSTANT-CONTENT REVIEW:
So here's the first major review of an online freelance writing website where writers can work and earn income. I choose to write this constant content website review because it is one of my favorite websites to sell work freelance writing online. This site hasn't been my biggest money maker as far as making money on the Internet, but it is a freelance writing website that offers a lot of opportunity for writers who are looking to make a little extra money online. In fact, there are several writers who make a full time living writing for Constant Content alone, but so far I've used this place as somewhere to put articles that I want to write or don't have a market for, or articles I plan on writing and re-selling several times (so obviously for these freelance writing articles I would offer only usage rights).
The first thing you'll need to know right off the bat is that Constant-Content.com pays only through PayPal, so if you don't have a PayPal account, roll up a newspaper and hit yourself in the head. Bad writer! Then go ahead and read this post on why online writers need PayPal.
All payments from Constant Content are done through PayPal, so that's a must. Signing up for an author account is completely free, and this site isn't restricted to just American writers. Australian and British authors are welcome to make money writing here, as well, and authors from any country that has PayPal. The major caveat to writers who speak English as a second language is that the editorial guidelines for CC are very clear: they expect solid grammar and English. If it doesn't read like native English, it's not good enough to be accepted on this site.
There's a small but very efficient team of editors on this site. Ed and Celeste are two names you'll become familiar with in learning to submit articles and read on topics on the Constant Content Forum. Obviously no Constant Content Review would be complete without a look at the editors, right? In my experiences Ed is a very professional editor. By professional, I mean just that. He is very good at his job, he takes care in his work, and he will be very direct and to the point on what problems you need to address if your article isn't up to snuff.
That doesn't mean he will hold your hand or be your best buddy. That's not his job. His job is to edit to make sure everything accepted into the Constant Content data base meets the editorial standards they put forth. Some people have complained of Ed being rude, but I've never found that to be the case (and a couple of times I made some bone headed mistakes before submitting articles that were rejected on the first run). He's old school professional: to the point and very direct. As a writer, that should be the type of editor you would hope for.
Write good articles for this website. This isn't an article dumping ground.
When you sign up, you can begin uploading articles immediately. This is a pretty easy process, and very self-explanatory as long as you read the directions and follow accordingly. The easiest mistake to make is to forget to upload the article after filling out all the information. Make sure to avoid this time consuming error.
One of the best parts of Constant-Content is being able to set your own prices for your freelance writing. So often taking advantage of freelance writing opportunities, especially for the beginning writer, means that you often are told how much you're getting paid, and as any starting freelance writer can tell you, way too often it's not very much. Any article you write for Constant Content you get to set your own prices for.
You also get to decide what type of rights you're willing to sell for your work. So instead of putting all that effort into making money writing and coming out with minimum wage (or worse), for ghost writing articles, you can tell a prospective buyer exactly how much you think your work is worth. Or you can even go so far on Constant Content as to decide to only sell usage rights, meaning your hard work freelance writing will be awarded with your name always on the byline.
There are three major types of rights that you can sell to your work as a freelance writer for Constant Content:
Usage Rights: If you sell usage rights this means that the buyer can post your article, but can't change anything. Your name remains as the author on the article, and not a single word can be changed. You own the copyright and can re-sell this article as many times as you can find buyers. This is my favorite types of rights to sell on Constant Content because like many online freelance writers, I like to get passive income from my articles and I like seeing my name in print :) These are usually sold at the cheapest rate since the buyer can't change anything.
Unique Rights: Unique rights are a little bit different. If a buyer purchases unique rights to your freelance writing, this means that nothing is changed in the article. The words remain exactly the same and you are credited as the author, but the purchaser is buying the unique rights to publish your article, which means that although you get the credit, you can never re-sell this article anywhere else, so make sure you mark it up to an amount you can live with.
Full Rights: This is exactly what is sounds like and is why this price should always be far higher than the others. Full rights means you sell full rights. You can charge a lot more for this, or choose to never sell full rights at all, but if you do the buyer owns everything, and can change this article any way they want. They can re-write most of it, or keep everything the same but put their name as the author. Most of the time this means your name won't appear with the work, and it will be as if you ghost wrote the article. These articles are in the highest demand, and sell most often on Constant Content.
It's hard to put an exact price on how much you should charge for each article, but don't undervalue your freelance writing! Depending on the quality of work, and degree of expertise, for 400 words I'll charge anywhere from $21-36 for usage rights, $29-49 for unique rights, and $39 on up for full rights. The $39 is generally for a basic 400 word SEO article that doesn't take much thought, time or research. For larger articles, the price can go up quite a bit. I once sold an 1,100 word article that took me two hours for $150 full rights. That's a very nice hourly pay, and it was on a subject that I wasn't probably ever going to need to use again, so I didn't mind giving away all the rights for that price.
Actually I even wrote that article for a request, and then the requester never purchased the article. This actually happens frequently, and as opposed to being discouraging, should be encouraging. There is a "requests" section on Constant Content where buyers can request articles. Many of the writers who make a living full time on CC do it by writing to these requests. Many times the requester will buy a good article, and many times they request something and never buy anything.
The good news is that this has happened to me many times, so I slapped a high price on the article, put it up for sale, and sold it to someone else a couple weeks (or months) later. The more articles you have available, the more likely someone is going to be looking for what you have to offer.
The rest is writing and figuring out how to get the most out of Constant Content based on your skills. Yes, full rights articles are the most sought after, but can you write articles people will want every year? I wrote an article on "Top 10 Movie Sociopaths" and sold usage rights four times. That's four quality sales for an opinion article in which research, writing, spell checking, and proof reading combined to take about 80 minutes. Not bad at all. The price is lowered now to $15 usage, mostly because after four sales this article is around the Internet and when the sales stopped coming, I lowered the price accordingly.
Another nice thing about Constant Content is you keep building over time. The more articles you write, the more sales you make, the more money you make. If you have enough in demand articles with usage rights on sale, then eventually CC can even become passive income for the determined freelance writer trying to make money online. My best month on CC (and I could be making a LOT more money on this site, but between Guru, Elance, going to grad school, and a full time writing job, and trying out everything on the web to get first hand info for this blog, I haven't given Constant Content nearly enough effort) was over $200 take home on a month where I didn't write a single new article.
I make generally $50 take home a month. I also haven't written a new article on CC in three months, and until the holiday rush is over, I won't be able to give them the attention they deserve. If someone started out with some actual work effort and a steady plan to write for CC, answer requested articles (I also almost never do this - I just write what I want on Constant Content), then it's not out of the question that CC alone could become a full time source of income.
The drawbacks to Constant Content?
Constant-Content does charge a pretty high 35% commission. That is a lot, but it is in range of professional referrals, and you should figure that into your pricing. If you want $15 for that article that took you 45 minutes to write, then charge $21. That easy. Even with that large commission, you also need to consider that this still pays you far more per article than with the far majority of other online freelance writing sites. It certainly beats pennies per month from Helium.com
So the Pros of Constant Content:
- You can choose your own topics
- You set your own prices
- Full time income potential
- Some passive income potential
- A perfect part time freelance writing site
- Freedom of schedule - less stress when life gets too busy
The negatives of Constant Content:
- No guaranteed sales
- 35% commission
- Must live in PayPal country
- Must be very solid in grammar and English usage
- You can't get your name out or build a reputation outside of Constant Content
- $50 minimum balance before you get paid
In my experience, the pros far outweigh the cons, and I look forward to getting a little bit of time next year and shooting for my goal of $5,000 from CC while still keeping up with all my other irons in the fire. I know this is a very doable goal, and for freelance writers looking for more freelance writing opportunities to make money writing online, you need to check out this site.
As a side note: if any of you writers are college freshmen, this is the perfect site. Over four years you have so much time to build up a wide array of articles that you might be able to make a full time living off passive income off CC by graduation, if you're willing to do the work.
One last thing: there is an affiliate program. For every author you refer, you get 10% of their sales, taken completely from Constant Content's 35% cut. This means if you sell an article only 25% goes to CC, while 10% goes to the grateful author who referred you. As a warning: don't get too excited when people sign up. The majority of people in life never put up the effort to get ahead. Out of 61 referrals (and counting) that I have, none have written over five articles, and over 2/3 haven't written a single one. Three have wrote at least one article, as I have three "cuts" for a whopping $3.25 or so. But you keep up the referrals because every penny counts, and because you hope one day a full time Constant Content writer who'll go on to make 30k a year will sign up through your referral link to show their appreciation
So come on, be that writer. I dare you, sign up and make a small fortune and make us both happier :)
I hope this Constant Content review has been helpful. If there are any further questions that any of you have, please feel free to leave your question in the comments section. For all those writers out there looking for freelance writing opportunities and other great ways to make money online, keep up the hard work, good luck, and hopeful this Constant-Content.com review will help you on your way to a full time writing income.
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