If you didn’t get the print issue of Writer’s Digest that featured its annual pick for the 101 best websites for writers, the list is now online. The list includes useful websites that come from every area of the writing world, from agents to zines.

Constant Content made that list this year. Really, there is no site quite like Constant Content. Selling articles on any subject, or buying high-quality, informative content for a website, is straightforward and simple. Whether you’re a writer looking to sell your work, a website owner looking for great content, or a writer who owns a website and needs to fill gaps in coverage, Constant Content can give you what you’re looking for. So of course Constant Content is one of the best 101 websites for writers and for website owners as well!

There are, however, a great many other reasons why Constant Content is one of the best websites for writers. Uploading articles for approval is easy (once you get the hang of it, right?). Staff members genuinely want writers to be able to sell their work here. Customers can form relationships with writers to provide content on a regular basis. And there is a community of writers willing to answer questions, share experiences, and offer support.

We’re probably biased here at Constant Content, but we hold the opinion that Constant Content is number one on Writer’s Digest’s list of 101 best websites for writers. Want to see what they have to say about Constant Content and 100 other websites for writers? It’s now online: Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers

Before submitting, please be sure that you aren’t confusing some of these common homophones in your writing:

• there, their, and they’re
• its and it’s
• your and you’re
• hear and here

Your word processor’s spell check will not catch these errors! However, we will!

When you are using titles of movies, books, music or works of art, you must punctuate the title with quotation marks. You might be inclined to use italics, and in some applications, that would be acceptable. However, for web writing, you need to use quotation marks.

Some basic guidelines (borrowed from the AP Stylebook):

• Capitalize the principle words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters
• Capitalize an article (four letters or fewer) if it is the first or last word in a title
• Put quotation marks around the names of all works except the Bible and catalogs of reference materials (or dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.)

Examples:

• This is a review of the Disney Pixar film “Ratatouille.”
• We read “The Grapes of Wrath” in high school.

Your submissions will be rejected if you do not properly punctuate composition titles.

There have been a lot of questions lately about accepted file types when submitting articles to Constant Content. To make it easy for the customers and editors to open your documents, we can only accept documents submitted in the following file types:

• doc (or Microsoft Word documents)
• txt (or text documents from Notepad)
• rtf (or rich text documents, which can be saved and opened from a variety of word processing programs)
• html (without coding – some word processing programs have the ability to “save as” an html file)
• pdf (to be honest, this file type is not our favorite, and many customers specifically ask that articles not be submitted in pdf format)

We will not be able to open any other file types, such as wps, odt, or docx, so we will have to reject any articles submitted in these file types. These types of rejections will not count against you (unless you keep submitting in a file type we can’t open), so there’s no need to worry if you accidentally submit in the incorrect format. Just resubmit with a file in the proper format attached.

If you have other articles waiting in the queue that you know have been uploaded in the incorrect format, kindly delete those articles before resubmitting. Thanks a lot!

These two words so often get mixed up that it has almost become acceptable to use them interchangeably. Just the other day, I saw an incorrect usage of comprise on a well-respected university’s web site. I had to make sure that I wasn’t the one who got them mixed up and went and looked it up. Sure enough, the university had used the incorrect phrase comprise of.

Must. Use. Red. Pen.

Needless to say, marking up my computer screen didn’t do any good. So I thought I’d write a blog post about it in case anyone needed the same type of clarification I did.

Compose

Something can be composed of separate elements:

“Wikipedia is composed of articles by many different volunteers.”

Also:

“Contributions from 15 volunteers may compose one Wikipedia article.”

Comprise

Something comprises, or consists of, separate elements.

“Wikipedia comprises articles from many different volunteers.”

An excellent, very short explanation (but more complete than what I’ve given) can be found in The Columbian Guide to Standard American English. Take a peek!

Regime and regimen are two words writers often confuse.

Regimen would be use to refer to a scheduled activity, like exercise. “She followed her weight-lifting regimen almost religiously.”

Regime, on the other hand, refers to governments or periods of rule. “Stalin’s regime was one of totalitarianism.”

When in doubt, look it up!

Writing is a special gift. It’s a gift that allows some of us to feed ourselves and our families. It’s a gift that keeps some of us out of a traditional work environment or brings in a second income. But the value of this gift doesn’t have to stop at providing for ourselves or those immediately under our care – we can use this gift for charitable purposes, too.

Take, for example, the site Ukraine Orphans. This site features books by volunteers who have dedicated parts of their lives to helping this unfortunate group of children – some who need medical care, infant formula, or simply the world to know they are there, waiting for something better to come along. Proceeds of the books go into funds that help Ukraine orphans.

Another example of how we, as writers, can use our skills to benefit others, can be found at Kiva.org. Kiva is a program that provides microloans to individuals in impoverished regions of the world. This organization needs volunteers who can translate, but these volunteers must also have proficiency in English. Sometimes, Kiva will also need volunteers to help edit business proposals. And they only ask for about 8 hours of volunteer time per month!

We can also use our writing skills on a more personal level. Women for Women International and Children International both incorporate the act of letter writing into their sponsorship programs. More than money, with writing it is possible to give encouragement and hope to others.

Locally, we can write to make our communities aware of projects or initiatives. We can volunteer to write newletters for organizations, animal shelters, or churches. We can use our skills to help others craft well-written grant proposals, not-for-profit websites, and advertisements.

Volunteer writing gives us practice and makes us feel good. Do you have personal experiences with volunteering your writing ability that you’d like to share? Other outlets for volunteer writing that you would like to make the Constant Content community aware of? Please include them in the comments below!