From time to time I’ve tossed out some of my ideas about how to run a freelance writing business. One of my key concepts for starting a successful freelance writing small business is that you have to be able to fill in those time periods where the business does not have enough freelance writing projects or a deep enough pipeline to keep the revenue flowing into the business. Spend all of your time going for projects you have a 20% shot of getting and there are going to be some months where the incoming cash-flow is going to be very lean. It is during these hard times that writers wash out of freelancing and go back to the corporate world.
One way to keep a steady stream of business income coming through the door is to cultivate a writing position with some of the article generation websites out there that pay upfront cash fees to writers. Earning money writing online for these companies provides one way to smooth out the ups and downs of freelance projects and makes for a more dependable writing income.
One thing to note, writing for content generation sites (sometimes referred to as article mills) is the opposite of creating a long-term stream of passive income that so many writers attempt to build. Don’t get me wrong, I am very much in favor of creating an income stream that comes without any effort, but big monthly income from passive sources doesn’t happen overnight. Anyone who says differently, is selling something (probably something that doesn’t work).
Demand Studios Allows Writers to Flag Titles Update
Demand Studios is one of the content generation sites that allows professional writers to take on writing assignments without any real limitations once you have been fully qualified. If you are interested in the mechanics of writing for Demand Studios, you should probably check out How to Write for Demand Studios, as well as How Demand Studios works. Finally, so you have a realistic idea of how much money a freelance writer makes with them, you should also research, Is Demand Studios Worth It.
One of the most irritating aspects of writing for Demand Studios is wading through dozens, or even hundreds, of crappy titles. These include everything from titles with no answer (How To Get Your Credit Score Reset) to titles that would take an entire book to cover (How To Build a Space Shuttle Step By Step). Just as annoying are those titles that have obviously been misclassified by someone who either
- a) doesn’t understand English well enough or
- b) uses some sort of automated method to edit titles
There were recently a ton of titles under the Investing category like How To Trim A Hedge Before Winter. Obviously, someone is working from a crib sheet or something that tells them that titles with “hedge” (as in hedge fund) must go in investing. Of course, even if you eliminate the plants, there are still plenty of other meanings of hedge that would not be related to personal finance or investing.
It was, therefore, a joy to find out that Demand Studios is testing a new system, at long last, that allows writers to tag stupid titles. Certain titles are still supposed to be reported via other (longer taking) mechanisms, but a great many of the dumbest title errors can be quickly and easily flagged by approved writers.
The reason that this is so important, and such good news, is that Demand Studios pays a relatively low fee for the articles written by its writers. In order to make writing for Demand Studios worth it, it is necessary to complete articles quickly. One of the biggest mistakes new freelance writers make is not accounting for time that they spend working that isn’t specifically writing. One potentially time consuming task at Demand Studios is finding articles to be written that are right for a particular freelancer.
Spend 10 minutes finding one article title, and suddenly the pay rate has dropped to very low hourly rates that are pretty much unacceptable for a serious freelance writer. Being able to flag idiotic titles quickly will hopefully lead to them being cleared out fast which means that finding good titles will be much easier, and more importantly, faster. As an added bonus, hopefully it exposes some of the least diligent title editors as money cranking shills and gets them eliminated as well. After all, nothing is faster than never letting a junk title into the system in the first place.
Flag Poor Titles at Demand Studios
One important note about the new title flagging system at DemandStudios.com. It is not an open system that all writers can participate in right away. The company has wisely limited the title flag function to writers who have proven that they are serious, competent, writers instead of throwing the doors open to everyone. Not that being elitist is always a good thing, but especially on the Internet, if there is a way to abuse something, people will do it.
By making sure that a certain amount of time, effort, and quality has been demonstrated by a writer before handing out the title marking attribute, the company makes it less worth the effort for hackers, bozos, and even deliberately malicious users to misuse the title reporting feature.
I’ll keep you posted, but lets hope this makes writing for Demand Studios even more profitable in the future.
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