Studio Blog

Hi, this is Robyn, the Director of Content for Demand Studios. I know many of you have questions about our decision to change the compensation for writer-suggested articles, and I wanted to explain the reason for the switch. This essentially was a business decision. Our data demonstrates that the titles we assign consistently outperform writer-suggested titles. So we needed to find a way to encourage you to write more Demand-generated titles. Our editorial team reads your feedback in our forums, blog comments and on other sites. Many of you have noted that the prices advertised as "variable" seem stuck at $5. We are taking steps to move toward a wider range of payments, even though this may not be evident now.

If you wish to write about topics that you can’t find among our titles, we encourage you to submit your ideas. We want you to write about topics you're passionate about. However, you also have to make a business decision, and we understand if you decide it’s not worth your time to write an article for what we’re willing to pay. Demand Studios will always tell you how much we will pay before you decide whether to write your article. If you choose not to submit new titles, your earnings don’t have to diminish. We are committed to actively pumping more Demand Studios titles into our system to supply you with plenty of work at the $15 level. A primary goal for this team is to create as many earning opportunities as possible for our writers, today and in the future. As long as you continue to deliver quality work, we will continue as a reliable source of income for this talented community – and that commitment includes managing the business so that we can increase our investment in areas like our $15 articles. I hope you’ll be patient with us and continue to speak out. Demand Studios appreciates the feedback, suggestions and ideas that come through the forums, blogs and other areas.

Thanks, Robyn

The email we sent out yesterday regarding the price reduction for user suggested titles has understandably caused a lot of questions. We have read your forum posts and comments to the blog on the same topic. We did want to remind everyone that we still have hundreds of titles available in the title pool that are worth $15 each. And, we have plans to continue feeding that tool with $15 titles.

To answer some of your questions:

• Will we be offered a chance to accept or decline an offer?

Yes, you will always know the price we will pay for an article before you decide whether or not to write it.

• Will we be updated with a breakdown of price ranges, topics that are more lucrative?

We won’t be posting a breakdown of price ranges. We estimate that the majority of suggested titles we’ve seen so far would be placed in the $5 range.

Again, there are many titles available for the $15 price point and we are feeding more in everyday. We know that many of you rely on Demand Studios as a main source of income. We hope this clarification sheds some light on the situation and the opportunities that are still available.

Are there any other major questions you saw that need clarification?

-Demand Studios Editorial Team

Hello DS writers. Demand Studios is making a change regarding user-suggested assignments. We are moving away from a set price of $15 for your user-suggested assignments to variable pricing for these titles. Initially, you will probably notice a drop in price. Our plan is to give you more freedom to write on more topics and introduce a sliding scale to pay more for articles we believe will gain an audience. This pricing change will not affect articles that are assigned by our Studio team and are available to all qualified writers. The change in pricing will go into effect Friday, October 17th, so if you'd like your title approved at the set $15 price, please submit the title before that date.

The price of the article will be set after the title is approved, but before the article is written.

As always, we can be reached at editorialteam@demandstudios.com for questions or comments.

-Demand Studios Editorial Team

Hi everyone! I hope you are all ready for the weekend, I know I sure am. I'm also ready for some cold weather ( Los Angeles, did you hear that?) Before you head off to enjoy your 48 hours of good food, good laughs and good entertainment, here's a great post about where our titles come from...

No doubt you ask yourself that question when searching for available titles in Demand Studios. Truth is, we couldn’t make this stuff up ourselves if we tried. So where do they come from? It’s simple, really. Demand Studios’ titles are based a number of different sources that tell us what people are looking for online. Questions like, “How Do I Get My Dog to Sit?” or “Where Did This Rash Come From?” People type strings of keywords into the search engines rather than full sentences. So we have a team that edits these search terms into the titles you see. These editors take the search term “NBA championship 1977” and make the title: “Who Won the 1977 NBA Championship?” So while the titles suggested by Demand Studios may seem fantastically random at times, you can take pride in the fact that your expertise or dogged research supplies answers to some of the humanity’s most probing (or at least popular) questions. And while you’re at it, you get a peek into the psyche of the Internet community.

-Liana

Hello Demand Studios writers! This is just a note to let you know that when and if you write an About article, the subheads you choose are only used once throughout the article. For example, if you're writing an article entitled "About Frizzy Hair," you would not use the subhead "Prevention/Solution" in your article more than once. Writers are required to choose at least five different subheads for the article. We are currently updating the About guidelines to reflect this. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, leave us a comment or email at editorialteam@demandstudios.com

-Liana

To help you avoid or reduce rejections, we've set up a new system. If you need help in writing an article, fulfilling a query from an editor or tackling a challenging topic, email Richard Lally, who leads our editorial teams and quality-control efforts, at editorialteam@demandstudios.com.

Please put "Writing Assistance" in the subject line; Richard will respond with his tips and advice. You can ask him to review an article before you resubmit it to the original editor in response to a rewrite request. Remember you get only one chance to rewrite. Richard can increase the odds that your effort is accepted.

-Demand Studios Editorial Team

Editors will reject articles that aren't specific to the title or that contain prose you've used in other articles. As you write each tip, ask yourself "Is this information specific to the locale indicated by the title?" If it's not, the tip is probably inappropriate. Go back online and find resources particular to the city, state or region. Make the piece more particular to the the locale by naming specific organizations and other resources particular to that place. You shouldn't merely drop in the name of the locale as in "look for attorneys in Denver" or "call the Seattle city hall."

Avoid using national entities. For instance, don't write a step advising the reader to visit the national ASPCA link for a story entitled "How to Report Animal Abuse in New York City." Never send readers on generic online searches or suggest that they use the local Yellow Pages or other, similar resources to find local organizations. Supply contact information for every local organization you reference.

Write fresh content for each step; even if the tasks are essentially the same for each locale. Never cut-and-paste or replicate the steps from one article to another.

If most of the steps are particular to the location, you may devote one or two steps to generic information that applies to all locales, but place those in the final steps or, better, in the Tips and Warnings sections. Lead with material that fulfills the title.

Look for material that can particularize generic information. For example, if you advise readers to "Consult an attorney to find out if you can obtain legal remedies for this situation" as a step in "How to Report Animal Abuse in New York City," you should tell them how to find an appropriate attorney: "Contact the NYC chapter of the Animal Rights Organization at (telephone number and/or website) for a list of attorneys who handle these cases."

-Richard Lally

Photo by fastskybus

Demand Studios is consistently making changes based on feedback from writers, and we want to keep you abreast of those that affect you directly. Please be aware that we have changed our system so that expired user-suggested titles will not go back into the pool of available titles. We have done this to ensure that the person who suggests the title is the one that writes the article. As of now, all expired titles sit unused and unavailable in our system. Should you see non-selectable titles in the available-assignments section, you will know what those are. Soon we will have the ability to delete these titles, allowing users to suggest them again. We will let you know as soon as writers are allowed to resubmit these titles; in the meantime, you can avoid losing titles you suggest by writing the articles before their expiration dates.

Great news, writers! The Demand Studios Forums are up! We are excited to introduce a tool that will allow content creators to share information and discuss all things Demand Studios and beyond.

Here is how to get to them. Log in and click on the Forums link in your User Menu. You’ll be prompted to create a display name, the name that other writers will see when you post. Once you’ve done this, hit submit, and that’s it – you’re in the Forum!

We know our writers to be a group of talented people with a wide range of interests. We’re glad that you’ll now be able to get to know one another.

-Demand Studios Editorial Team

Photo by Bob Jagendorf