Your Best Content - $25

Associated Content has been very gracious with the assignment desk as of late; so much so that the list is exhaustive to go through every day. It's great that they are really trying to keep the creative juices flowing, so to speak, by providing these assignments. What's not so great is that probably over half of these assignments are not even eligible for upfront payment which is what most people rely on for their income. I skim through the assignments occasionally but not every day. When I popped into the Contributor's forum last night, though, I was shocked to discover that some people were getting assignments calling for "Your Best Content" which promised to pay a $25 upfront for an exclusive piece. I immediately looked in my assignments, found it, and claimed it.

According to the guidelines, this piece has to be at least 450 words, which is 50 words longer then standard guidelines. They also say an applicable category will be selected upon review which means they don't want to specify categories. It may depend, this time, more of how the article is written then anything else. I could try to speculate but I don't know. I'm taking a wild guess here that the current categories that they don't accept for upfront may be the same categories they won't consider for the $25 upfront. Who knows? The whole thing is not very concrete and is just as much a gamble as any other submission. Different content reviewers have different opinions on what is and is not acceptable on AC. This is obvious to me because of my past experience. So I'll play Russian roulette and just wing it.

Let's find out what the outcome of this assignment will be.

Two Years Down. Ten Things I Wish I'd Have Known About AssociatedContent.Com Way Back 730 Days Ago Today

Enjoy this humorous article from Contributor Donald Pennington. Great tips!

Two Years Down. Ten Things I Wish I'd Have Known About AssociatedContent.Com Way Back 730 Days Ago Today
During these first two years of writing some sort of keyword-dense web content for and with AssociatedContent.com a lot of good things have happened...
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/2167061/two_years_down_ten_things_i_wish_id.html

Associated Content Raised My Confidence

A year ago come tomorrow, I joined Associated Content. I think I submitted two or three articles, had them declined and told myself they just wasn't who I was looking to write for. A couple of months later, after reading something in a forum about AC, I was compelled to return. I read up on different articles and finally submitted a couple... which were accepted. I was thrilled! I began to write more and was very impressed at the timely payments I received. So I kept writing.

After a few months of writing, I felt I was confident enough to start a blog. The first blog I started led to another topic and then another topic, etc. Now I have five blogs. Although all but one is semi-active (meaning I post in each blog at least once a month), I enjoy blogging very much.

One of my blogs, called DeKalb Ramblings, had such a positive response online that I was compelled to turn it into a full blown webzine. That webzine has been going for almost two months now and the response has been wonderful.

My point is, without starting my writing on AC, I don't think I would've had the confidence to do some of the things I am doing now. I love my job. I get a lot of local respect now, and because of the changes in my professional life, I have decided to change my personal life. I am now a non-smoker, I'm gradually losing weight, and I'm loving life.

As if that wasn't enough, I received a letter last Monday from DAW publishing (an imprint of Penguin USA) that said my novel passed the first reading. They would pass it on to a second reader and if it passed, they would send it on to a senior editor to see if they want to publish it. That's one step closer!

While AC and I have had our bad issues and I still don't make enough money to spit at, I still love writing and I will continue to write for them unless they tell me to shove off. I do feel that my confidence was because I learned gradually by writing for AC.

And so what if my page views are still minuscule? I am still excited over my 30,000 page views and can't wait to reach the next ten thousand.