Archive for the ‘demand studios’ Category

The Backstory (You can skip this if you want.)

I began writing for Demand Studios in July of 2009. At the time, it was a dream come true. I was living in a sleepy little town with no jobs. Demand Studios met me right where I needed them to and provided writing opportunities that fit my abilities and expertise. At that point in time, Demand Studios boasted right around 20,000 Writers in their employ. There was a steady stream of a few thousand titles to choose from and while searching for titles was time-consuming, I always found something to write about.

Some full-time freelancers shun them as just another content mill…even though they are the highest paying such mill that I know of. When you break it down, they pay $15 for a basic article in various formats. That $15 buys ALL rights to that content. It comes down to if you are willing to sell ALL rights to your work at that price. I look at it like this…when I started out working for Demand, I could punch out an article in less than an hour. I found solid resources (because it’s required) and basically rewrote the content. If someone wants to pay me $15 for mediocre…fine with me.

I definitely needed the money. In this economy, and with the large influx of freelancers, no one is paying $25+ for content anymore. People who say they are, find it beneath them to offer proof or any REAL methods to land this type of work yourself. That’s a whole other post in and of itself. Let me see if I can get back on track here. I’m gonna focus on some of the  troubles I’ve experienced in recent months with Demand Studios.

Over the last year and a half, it has become increasingly difficult to be a “Demand Studios Writer” for a number of reasons:

Less Viable Titles

Demand Studios is notorious for crazy titles…such as:

“How to Build Your Own Keyboard Mouse Scanner”

I consider myself pretty intelligent and computer savvy, even well read about do-it-yourself type things, but uh, I have no idea what a “Keyboard Mouse Scanner” might even be. A Google search delivered no results as to what the heck it is either…much less how to “build your own”.

So while at the time of this writing, there were 295, 066 titles available to write, a crazy percentage of them are like the example above or something like:

“Backflow Check Valve Installation”
“How To Remove a Printer’s Print Codes”
“How To Use Frame Machines”

Large Writer Pool

The last I knew, there were 20,000 Writers working with Demand Studios. No doubt that number has increased over the last year and a half with the addition of Demand’s social media outlets and Craigslist listings for Writers. I was unable to find anything recent stating how many Writers are currently working for Demand Studios…not even in the Writer Forums. Since this information is being kept on the down low, I must logically assume that there are too many Writers.

Increased Editing Times

When I started with Demand, my articles were usually edited the same day…sometimes in a matter of a few hours. The last several times I have submitted articles, the editing time lagged and I didn’t get paid for some of them until the next payday. Demand Studios is not a place to earn a quick few bucks anymore now that editing times are impossible to predict.

Inconsistent Editing

Demand Studios has set strict guidelines for their Writers, and I can only assume the same to be true when it comes to editing. An Editor is responsible for knowing the Writers’ guidelines for all types of articles (15 formats as of this writing), and their own set of rules as well. I wouldn’t be familiar with that since I’m not an Editor. Granted, I’m sure it’s not the easiest job and I think they make about $3.50 per article. Inconsistency in editing is unavoidable, but that doesn’t make it less of an aggravation for the Writer. Knowing what you can get by with in the editing phase, inadvertently shapes the way you write your articles. Editors who are sticklers are trouble.

Everchanging Strict Guidelines

Demand Studios has guidelines out the wazoo. If they were any more strict, they’d be telling you what to write word for word. They have overall guidelines, and then separate guidelines for each format…yeah, 15 formats. As if that weren’t enough, they have blacklists of resources that you cannot use as well. First on the blacklists are all the sites that compete with various Demand Media websites. You also can’t use Demand Media sites to reference your article either. So, once you have a good handle on all the guidelines and blacklists, they change them…oh yes, at least once a week there is some kind of addendum to the “Studio Guidelines”. Ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

The Wrap-Up

This article is not meant to discourage anyone from giving Demand Studios a try. It’s worth a try. Heck, you might know what a “Keyboard Mouse Scanner” or a “Frame Machine” is. Here’s hopin’ you can find a viable reference to support your article so you can get paid. I get a lot of traffic on this site to the articles I have written about Demand Studios, so I know a lot of people are in the same boat and trying to figure out where to go from here. I wish I had your answer. Goodness knows if I was making bank in freelancing, I would have let you know by now.

The best advice I have is get yourself a website. You won’t get rich, but you’ll have an outlet for drivel like this AND for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Throw some ads on it, and enjoy the 2 or 3 cents a month it brings. No, but seriously…your own site is the way to go.

I applied for the job at Demand just before I was laid off as a full-time Technical Writer. I had done some freelancing here and there on the side for extra money and I had applied at a number of the “content mills” on the Internet. I really didn’t think that Demand Studios would be much different. So, I took a nonchalant approach to putting together my application. While I can’t remember what articles I used in my application, I just copied and pasted something I had on my hard drive at the time.

I really didn’t know anything about Demand Media, and I wasn’t concerned either way with getting the job. I think I half thought it was too good to be true since it was the highest paying “content mill” I had applied to. Two weeks later, I received my approval email. I updated my profile, and there it sat from February to July 2009. I jumped into writing for Demand with both feet on July 4th. This followed a cross-country move, and several months trying to secure full-time employment.

Part of the reason that I had procrastinated so on getting started was the extensive guidelines set forth by Demand. There are General Guidelines, and then separate guidelines for each article type. There are 12 different article types currently at the time of this writing. If you’ve checked into or been accepted as a DS writer, then I’m sure you have experienced how overwhelming that can be.

Needless to say, I was rather nervous when I submitted my first article. It ended up being a fairly painless process and it was approved with only a small change. There was no stopping me after that. While my contributions to the Studio have slowed somewhat since I’ve gotten a full-time job, I still write occasionally.

It’s important to note that if you can write coherently, show that you have some professional writing experience, and submit a couple decent articles, becoming a Demand Studios writer should be no big deal for you.

I write for Demand Studios. I have been writing for them since July 4, 2009. I was accepted as a writer long before then, but it was in July that my financial situation hit dire straits. I can’t remember what articles I sent them as samples, but I am almost certain that they were unremarkable. I half expected to be easily accepted and half expected them to be somewhat of a scam.

When I received my acceptance, it was nice since I had just lost my job. At least I had *something*. I hesitated to submit my first article after reading their strict and tedious guidelines. I thought, “I’ll never remember everything.” I started out writing Strategy articles. A Strategy article back then was almost like a tutorial. My first article was approved with a rewrite that only required a couple small edits. That gave me the confidence I needed to continue. I branched out and wrote a couple of other different kinds of articles: About and Fact Sheets.

I continued having success submitting articles and eventually fell in love with How To pieces. I write them almost exclusively now. The problem that I’ve had with Demand Studios is that I’ve had a really hard time meeting my financial goals writing for them. I know I can do it. It shouldn’t be that hard to write 40 articles and make $600 in a week…but it is. There are many variables that must be in sync when it comes to having a successful week with Demand such as:

• Writable titles
• New titles
• Figuring out when Demand uploads new titles
• Beating other writers to the good titles
• Exercising self discipline
• Keeping a schedule
• Maintaining a strong focus

Demand Studios has more than 160,000 titles available for claiming as of this writing. You would think that with such a large number of titles to choose from, it would be easy to find 40 to write. The truth as of late is that it takes HOURS to find just a few titles that are actually writable. I define writable as something that is possible to write, fits within my realm of knowledge and research, and is properly categorized. While you can search for any keyword you like, you may or may not find viable titles pertaining to your keyword choice. One of my favorite keyword searches is “photoshop”. As of late, there is less than a page of titles on Photoshop available. A few of these titles don’t make sense…they are not writable. A few of them specify that the article be about Photoshop Elements which is a completely different piece of software. These variables eliminate those titles as writable. Demand does have a category search, but it has been out of whack for months.

I don’t spend much time in the forums at Demand Studios, because hello! I need to be writing. The forums seem to be wrought with a lot of complaints regarding the copy editors and issues surrounding the writing and approval process. I’m not sure if not participating in the forums is to my detriment or not. Perhaps there’s something that I am missing. Supposedly, there is a set time each day that Demand uploads new titles, and if you are in the know about when this is, you have a chance to grab all the good titles. I don’t know when this moment happens, and the last couple weeks has proven that to me with a vengeance. It’s frustrating when you spend 2-3 hours searching for titles and end up with four.

The rate of pay is also up for debate. Until last week, the most you could make on a Demand Studios article was $15. That is tough to swallow when there are freelancers out there who claim to be commanding $50+ per article. So where I need write 8 articles per day with Demand, at that rate, I could get by with three. It saps one’s motivation. When I first started at Demand, all the writers were basically on the same level. Now they’ve launched a Premium program where they hand-picked writers who are eligible to write articles that pay as high as $75. Yours truly was not selected. I’m trying not to be bitter.

When you get down to it…I’ve been writing for Demand for 8 months and I still can only claim 10 articles at a time with consistent scores well above average. I have had 76% of my articles approved without a rewrite, and I can’t even get my queue increased 5 more articles. Speaking of consistency, the copy editors are not…in the least bit consistent. I won’t elaborate because I don’t want this post to become an outright bitchfest…and yeah, they *score* you. They score you based on grammar and research. Both things where it is easy to let one’s personal pet peeves take over.

Pros

• Demand Studios pays twice a week
• Payment is consistent and on time
• Large pool of titles
• Writers must be native English speakers
• Guidelines are well outlined

Cons

• Title to writable title ratio is opposite what it should be
• Recently expanding writer pool to the UK and Canada
• There are no briefings for articles
• Interpretation of the title is left up to the writer’s discretion
• Copy editors are inconsistent
• Huge pool of writers

If you are thinking about applying for Demand Studios, think about it. I won’t tell you not to do it because they have been a viable source of income for me and I’m not sure what I would have done without the opportunity. My best advice is to keep your options open, and you can do that while writing for Demand Studios. If you want to write for Demand or you already do, drop me line, I really like to network with my colleagues.