Sunday 3 January 2010

CC and Helium Again

At Constant Content, you can choose to write about anything under the sun, and if it is written well enough, it will be showcased there. More than half of my portfolio, of (currently) 124 articles, there has sold. A good many of them sold for unique or full rights, which means I have given up my rights to them; while the rest sold for usage rights only, which means I retain the rights and they have to be published under my byline. They remain showcased for the sale of usage rights only, and I can also publish them elsewhere.

Usually I choose to publish them at Helium, which almost always pays me a couple of dollars for each one. Articles there are competitive and you have to be rated in the top quarter to be paid, unless you are the first to submit a new title, which will be paid for if you are a starred writer and rater. And nowadays they do limit up-front payments to titles with only a few articles. If you are thinking of following suit, you need to read the rules quite carefully.

You probably know that articles at Helium are rated by the authors. In fact I have to complete a certain number of ratings in order to be allocated payments each month, as does every other author. Some people complain about the rating system, and I don’t always agree with where my articles fall. But I don’t complain because that’s just the way the system works. And I daresay every other author feels the same at some time or other.

What surprises me is that the ratings don’t seem to matter that much to people viewing the articles. For instance, since January 1st, my earnings have come from:

Tips for succeeding as an entrepreneur, which is 2 of 24

The advantages of getting married late in life – 4 of 4

China travel destinations: Visiting the Giant Panda in the Bifeng Valley – 1 of 5

Places worth seeing in Barcelona – 1 of 13

Travel experiences: Climbing to Castell d'Alaro, Majorca – 1 of 1

Travel destinations: The Little Chapel in Guernsey – 1 of 1

If any of those titles interest you, please head over there for a read and earn me some more pennies.

3 comments:

tashabud said...

Hi Jean,
I'll be sure to check them as time allows. It might be good to put a list on your side bar of all the links of your article at Helium. This way your readers will click on them when they have more time to read.

Tasha

Unknown said...

Thank you tashabud. I will do as you suggest.

Sharkbytes said...

Hi Jean- I belong to both but haven't written for them much. Mostly AC and Textbroker.

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