Or maybe not your voice, but the right voice. What’s the right voice?

Well, it depends upon a lot of factors. It depends upon your audience. It depends upon your topic. It depends upon the publication in which your article might appear. But first of all, it depends upon the type of writing you’re doing. After you’ve established that, you can adjust for the other factors.

Web Writing: A clear, easy-to-understand voice should be used. This type of writing should contain no references to the author. Keywords or keyword phrases may be necessary, and therefore some repetition is to be expected. The pronoun “you” is often used in order to get the reader’s attention and create a conversational tone.

Travel Writing: Whether or not you are writing for the web, travel writing often requires a voice that amps up the literary as well as informational interest. Readers should be able to “see” a place being described; a description should make the destination seem unique and travel-worthy. This doesn’t mean that every description should point out the good qualities of a destination–a place doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful for travelers to want to go there (or for readers to want to “armchair travel”).

The first-person voice may be used for travel writing in narrative scenes. However, the writing should not consist completely of personal narrative.

Reviews: Reviews should leave both the author and the reader out of the text. Constant Content sees a lot of reviews that are essentially personal narratives about an author’s dining experience at a certain restaurant. When a food critic or movie critic writes a review, they know that it is understood that what they have to say is their opinion. For example, they would say, “This movie was excellent,” instead of saying, “I felt this movie was excellent.”

Ideally, reviews reveal the author’s particular reviewing style – the voice they use personally for reviews. People read reviews as much for the writing and descriptions as they do for information about the movie. Descriptive writing that tells potential viewers about the movie, with plenty of examples (that do not spoil the movie for readers), will be of more interest and use to the reader than would a “review” that simply contains facts about the movie or the author’s personal narrative about how the movie made him or her “feel.”

Opinion: Opinion pieces are like reviews in that they should not consist of phrases that begin with “I think,” or “I feel.” Opinion pieces explain why the author has come to a conclusion either subjectively or objectively. The author should be able to supply solid examples to back up his or her reasoning.

Technical Writing: Technical writing should be clear, professionally sophisticated, and without personal opinion, literary flourishes, or extraneous details. Points should be made with the fewest possible words in a style that is easily accessible. The first-person point-of-view should never be used with technical writing.

Actually, technical writing and web writing are somewhat similar. Both types of writing should focus on clarity, readability, organization, and logical presentation of information. In some ways, it is more difficult to present a topic in a professionally sophisticated manner while still maintaining understandability of the piece than it is to write descriptions or narratives.

Scholarly Writing: Academic or scholarly writing does not need to present ideas in a convoluted or pretentious manner. In fact, it should not. While more sophisticated vocabulary and terms that are not a part of the everyday writer’s lexicon may be used, information should still be able to be accessed by those seeking information from the piece. Granted, these readers may be more highly educated than the average newspaper or website reader.

This is not an exhaustive list of all types of non-fiction writing, but it does cover most of the content on Constant Content. Some types of writing are more successful than others in this particular content marketplace, but individual submissions are always more successful if the voice is appropriate to the type of writing being attempted.

While there are various schools of thought about how subheadings should be formatted, for readability and professional appearance, Constant Content prefers one in particular.

Subheadings should be capitalized like titles and bolded to set them apart from the rest of the text.

For example, if your article is about tea, it would look something like this:

Types of Tea

Introductory paragraph.

Green Tea

Information about green tea.

White Tea

Information about white tea.

Red Tea

Information about red Tea

Black Tea

Information about black tea.

Conclusory paragraph.

Whether or not you want to double space between subheading and paragraph is up to you. However, capitalizing and bolding subheadings give your articles visual structure and allow readers to skim easily to the information they want most. In addition, this type of formatting also allows you to more easily outline and organize your article, and provides good points to include in your short summary as well.

In the past, editors were diligent about rejecting submissions in which the short summary was taken directly from the article itself. However, this rule was relaxed because most authors were writing short summaries that summed up their articles in a way that was useful to customers searching for content. However, this rule will once have to be enforced because many authors are simply pasting their introductory paragraphs into the short summary box.

Why should you write an original short summary?

• Customers don’t want to read the same thing twice–once in the short summary box, once in the long summary box.

• Introductory paragraphs don’t summarize articles–they introduce them.

• Customers need to be able to make quick decisions about whether or not they want to consider an article; reading whole paragraphs slows them down.

• Short summaries should include a few sentences that highlight the main points of your article, explain if it is written for a specific audience (ex: females under 40, single men, general audience), or point out anything unique about the article that would be of interest to a customer (ex: list of academic sources, humor).

Most importantly, short summaries should be brief synopses of articles.

Please keep this in mind when submitting articles. Write original short summaries that are free of errors and describe your articles in ways that will be useful to the customer. Refrain from taking a paragraph from your articles – whether it be introduction, conclusion, or body – and pasting it into the short summary box.

Lately, there have been a lot of submissions that have contained errors that should have been caught before upload. These include errors that a simple spell check or careful final read-through would have served to eliminate.

For an editor, this is especially frustrating. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the author to check his or her work for easily corrected errors. While your word processing program’s spell check cannot be relied upon to catch every error, it should still be used. Spell check may help you to catch typos that your eye has skipped over time and time again.

For problems with homophones or wrong word usage that spell check won’t solve, a final read-through is essential. If you don’t feel confident that your article is error free, read the article aloud to yourself (reading out loud take considerably longer than reading by sight only–it will force you to slow down and listen to your words) or ask someone else to proofread your work for you.

My thesaurus is one of my most-used reference books. It’s a massive book with a usable index and my own alphabetical labels. I’ve had it since high school graduation, and it continues to serve me well.

One of my most given pieces of advice for writers who want to improve is to use a thesaurus. Thesauruses can brighten dull writing, reduce redundancy, and allow the writer to more accurately express a thought or idea. They also increase vocabulary, synonym recognition, and use of creative expressions. If you’ve never used a thesaurus, shame on you! If you’ve been using one for years, congratulations. Even the best of writers sometimes stumble on a word or turn of phrase and need to have their vocabularies jogged when they aren’t offering the appropriate words.

While I’m not particularly fond of the reference.com set of sites, Thesaurus.com is probably the only really useful web-based thesaurus. It pulls lots of results quickly for the word in question and doesn’t require you to leave your keyboard to flip through a book. I still recommend getting a gigantic paper-based thesaurus, however, if you really want to do some serious writing.

My advice about using a thesaurus comes with a caveat: If you think the synonym you’ve identified is what you want, but you aren’t absolutely sure, look it up. There are very few true synonyms, as each word is imbued with its own nuanced meaning. Always choose the best word for the job.

Why do I have to format the articles in a certain way?

Articles must be submitted according to our guidelines for many reasons. Customers need to be able to purchase content that can be easily read and placed on their websites. Editor see dozens of articles per day, which means that articles must be formatted for easy review.

My article was rejected for containing website addresses or links. Why?

Buyers prefer articles without links because they want readers to stay on their websites. Web addresses or links can lead visitors away. Links are permitted when the buyer states as much in a request. “Links okay per requester” should be noted in the short summary field to alert editors to this detail.

How do I upload an article?

Click on the “Submit an Article” link where you’ll find our Article Submission Form. To upload an article:

1. Choose a category. It is essential that you choose a category that is specific. There are specific categories to choose from under “articles,” “reviews,” and “blog entries.”
2. Browse for your article’s file located on your PC.
3. Fill out the submission form’s fields – title, price, summaries, and keywords.
4. Click the button on the bottom that says “Submit Files.” This will submit your article to Constant Content and place it in the queue for review.

After successful submission, you can double check the status at any time by clicking the “Your Content” link. The status varies from “under review”, “for sale” or “sold”. You can now view Your Content by category and by status.

I uploaded my article but it has disappeared from my Your Content list. What happened?

If an article disappears from your list shortly after you posted it, it has likely been rejected. Check your email box for a rejection notice (check your spam filter or junk mail folder too). You may inquire about rejections in the Rejected Articles section of our forum.

How do I enable the “Best Offer” option?

If you choose, you can edit your submissions to allow customers to make offers. You can enable the Best Offer feature on articles already available for sale or for newly submitted articles. Simply check the “Best Offer” box by editing existing submissions or when you upload a new submission for review.

Oops, I just submitted an article, but I forgot to mention something in the short summary. Do I have to re-submit it?

You can edit submissions that are still under review. Find the article in Your Content and choose the “Edit” link under the column labeled “Action.” Here you can edit your summaries, price, keywords, upload new files and even opt to accept a “Best Offer”.

My article was rejected because the long summary was too short. Why?

A full one third of the article must be included in the long summary. This allows potential customers to see what they are buying and decide whether or not your article is right for them. Many authors post a great deal more of their articles and have reported increased sales success.

A customer bought my article for full rights and has posted his name in the byline. Can he do that?

Yes. When you sell an article for full rights, you are selling all rights to it. The customer is buying the right to use it in any manner he sees fit. By selling a full rights license, you have become a ghostwriter. Keep this in mind and price your rights according to your wishes. If you do not wish to give up your byline, do not post your article for sale with a full rights license.

My article was rejected because I included a short bio about myself. Why can’t I do this?

As Constant Content does not permit promotion or self-promotion, bios or signature lines are not permitted.

My article submitted for sale for usage rights was rejected because it has been previously published by another author. I use a pen name and I am that other author!

All articles are run through Copyscape, so any instance of an article having been published elsewhere will be made known to the editors. If you use multiple names, including pen names, it is your responsibility to indicate this to the editors. Include a note of explanation in your short summary if this is your situation. Note that articles previously published may only be sold for usage rights.

What Is the Difference Between a Public Request and Private Request?

Public Requests go out to the entire writing community at Constant Content. These should be placed in the most appropriate category for the article’s topic. Private Requests are requests made by customers for specific writers, and they are made privately, so only those writers can see the request. These may be placed under the “Private Requests” master category. Please differentiate between the two types of requests upon submission so that articles are placed correctly.

How do I respond when a customer makes a request?

To respond to a request simply locate the request under the Requested Content section and either view the request first to see the details, or go directly to the “Q/A” link.

To view the request first, click on View Description. Here you will see the details of the request, including subject matter, word count, and price range. You’ll also see a link labeled See Q/A. Clicking this link will allow you to start a dialogue with the buyer by asking question, or to draw attention to your submitted article by sending the buyer the link to your accepted content.

How Do I Change Personal Information Like Email Address and Pen Name?

Support can make changes to your account upon request.

When will I get Paid?

In order to get paid on the next payment cycle, you must have earned at least $50. Once you’ve reached this threshold, you will be paid on the next payday.

Payment is made on or around the beginning of each month. Customers’ payments must be cleared before payment is made.

How do I contact Support?

You can email Constant Content any time by clicking the “Contact Us” link in the upper right part of the web page. You may also email support directly: support -at- constant-content.com . Use this address to ask questions about your account. For general questions about Constant Content, visit the Constant Content forums.

Why can’t I contact a customer directly or post contact information?

By using Constant Content, you agree to the site’s Terms and Conditions, which can be reviewed by clicking the link at the bottom of the page. Constant Content’s marketing and services bring customers and writers together in an arena that benefits both parties. You win because you have a place to market your work with no up-front fees. The customer wins because he has a place to buy quality content. Bypassing Constant Content’s system and posting contact information to our customers is grounds for account suspension.

What advice do you have for a new member of Constant Content?

First, take a deep breath. Next, review the Writer’s Guidelines and Writer’s Tutorial. Familiarize yourself with the layout of the website. Finally, write your article following the guidelines, proofread it, proofread it again, and submit it. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the responsiveness of Constant Content’s editors even if the article is rejected.

If your submission has been rejected, you will receive an email notification stating the reasons why your article has been rejected. Proofread your article thoroughly to make sure it is understandable, grammatically correct, and polished. Then make all necessary revisions and re-submit. While you’re waiting for approval, cruise over to the forum and get to know your fellow writers.

It’s November, winter is just around the corner, and the holidays are coming. It’s time to begin thinking about gifts for the fellow writer in your life, or gifts for yourself that will make your writing life more enjoyable, or suggestions for your wish list. Here are some of my favorite writing-related items. Enjoy!

Fingerless Gloves – Fingerless gloves are great for writers because they keeps hands warm while leaving fingers free to type. They’re also pretty fashionable both for men and for women. I love my merino wool fingerless gloves.

Book Chair – These eco-friendly book holders keep novels, reference books, or cookbooks open while the reader is working, lifting weights, taking notes, or grooming the cat.

Adjustable Tables – My fully adjustable table/desk saved my wrists, back, and neck. I would recommend these tables to anyone who is concerned about ergonomics or who experiences pain while working. They also take up so little room that they’re ideal for small apartments.

Ergonomic Keyboards and Mice – Adjustable keyboards, touch-pad mice, and other ergonomic work devices are available from this site. Ideal for those who suffer from repetitive stress injuries or carpel tunnel symptoms.

“Word Choice” Print – This print says it all.

Laptop Case- Trendy and practical, a custom-fit laptop case makes people take you seriously.

Espresso Makers – Long, cold nights and deadlines . . . espresso to the rescue!

There are hundreds of other great gifts for writers, especially because most freelancers are exhausted, downtrodden, and in desperate need of attention. ( . . . What? You aren’t? Lucky you!) If someone wants to get you a gift, suggest one of these items to them. Or ask them for a massage, dinner, absolute silence, or a well-deserved holiday. Or cupcakes. Yum!