Any Suite 101 writers out there?

stldenise said:

Yippee! Those gals at Suite really are great people. I wrote an email back at the crack of dawn (I'm keeping weird hours lately) stating my case. I cc'd it to the editor who disabled the 10th article.

By 10:30 this morning, the editor has responded back that I forgot to click a button that let her know the changes were made and she hunted down the article for me and released it. She also emailed somebody else to help get me reinstated.

So I'm back! Whew! Now I just have to add Suite to my weekly rotation so I don't cut it that fine again. I was really starting to find my stride with them, and figuring out how I can take ideas and spin them for multiple sites.

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Awesome, Denise! They really are good people - just have a lot on their plate.

Glad you're still on the team, Denise.

I just posted my 14th article. I've only earned $0.03 so far. This works out to around $0.22 per 1000 page views. Of course, so far I have no images uploaded, no internal links between related articles, and I'm still pretty unfamiliar with this whole SEO thing. Hopefully I'll do better with time. Overall I like the site, I enjoy writing the articles, and I really like that you can go back in and change the articles when needed.

NDG

the more images the better. I use to only use one, now I try to find at least three with good SEO keywords that I can label the pics. Also, try to use links to things whenever you can, also a good way to keep pvs coming and to raise the revenue. After I started adding more pics with better topic keywords and adding in the links, the better my revenue got.

I'm very happy with Suite. I make as much with 200 articles and 6 months of writing there in residual income than I do at AC with over 4 yrs and 900 articles.

stldenise said:

I'm having a hard time finding answers on the suite forum, so I'd ask you vets here. When an article is flagged, does it stay flagged forever? I got an email about a flag, and when I went to my Suite page, THREE artlicles were flagged. I just about fell out of my chair, until I noticed that two of the flags are old.

I already corrected those. Do the flags stay around like a Scarlet Letter? Or was my rewrite eaten by the system and I have to resubmit?

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The Suite forum didn't answer your question? Weird. Anyway, yes the flag usually it stays there, but I did have mine fall off as far as the flag next to the title. Inside the article (in edit view) you can still read what the article was flagged for.

I wouldn't worry. Once you've done a nice amount of articles, it won't be so glaring, LOL.

tinasamuels said:

the more images the better. I use to only use one, now I try to find at least three with good SEO keywords that I can label the pics. Also, try to use links to things whenever you can, also a good way to keep pvs coming and to raise the revenue. After I started adding more pics with better topic keywords and adding in the links, the better my revenue got.

I'm very happy with Suite. I make as much with 200 articles and 6 months of writing there in residual income than I do at AC with over 4 yrs and 900 articles.

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I'm nodding over here, Tina. Yes, I try for 5 pics everytime. On occasion, I have to do four and in the case of a Honduran White bat that I'm going to be working on soon - I can only find 1, LOL.

I posted this on the Suite 101 forums today (the Writer Networking/Off-topic room).

The Suite 101 Blues
One watches in vain, in considerable pain,
for a revenue bump or two.
I'm not havin' much fun on this Suite 101,
and in fact I'm beginning to stew.
They say, "Never mind, for in time you will find
that the money will roll in to you."
Well maybe that's so, but it's sure startin' slow.
Is this only because I'm so new?
Guess my readers won't click on those ads they find sick,
and I don't know what I'm gonna do.
So far I've earned three measly cents--woe is me!
What say you, fellow swabs on this crew?

Norman D Gutter said:

I posted this on the Suite 101 forums today (the Writer Networking/Off-topic room).

The Suite 101 Blues
One watches in vain, in considerable pain,
for a revenue bump or two.
I'm not havin' much fun on this Suite 101,
and in fact I'm beginning to stew.
They say, "Never mind, for in time you will find
that the money will roll in to you."
Well maybe that's so, but it's sure startin' slow.
Is this only because I'm so new?
Guess my readers won't click on those ads they find sick,
and I don't know what I'm gonna do.
So far I've earned three measly cents--woe is me!
What say you, fellow swabs on this crew?

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What an awesome poem!

But I totally feel you. I just started with Suite 101 and am wondering if it will actually be worth it. My first article got flagged 3 times and the editor still wasn't impressed with it. She wanted to make it into a different article than it actually was, telling me that 400 words is not enough and that I should really not push it with the word count. What?! For a site that doesn't pay upfront, I'm not sure if the time I've been spending on a single article will be worth it.

What has everyone else's experience been like?

sugarloaf:

Revenue has been a little better lately. My payout date (i.e. when I will accumulate my first $10.00 of revenue) has come forward from sometime in the 22nd century to mid-2010. I'm slowly learning SEO and the various SEO tools that have been recommended on the site. Possibly this is helping, although the inability to track revenue to specific articles makes this uncertain.

I haven't had too much trouble with flags. I've got 22 articles up, and I think five of them have been flagged, and none twice. I think flags are very much dependent on who the editor of the category is. Most seem to have generic reports for the reasons for the flag, although mine have always added something specific about the article. All of my articles have been over 600 words, and most push the 800 recommended maximum.

All in all, it is a positive experience. I like being able to chose what I want to write about and to write at my own pace. At this stage the research is minimal and the writing fast. Whether it will be "worth it" or not I don't know yet. Let's talk again in six months for an interim report.

NDG

I just checked out the Suite 101 forum today and learned something helpful. Apparently, they only go through a tough revision for your first article and the next ones are supposed to be easier. They want to make sure you know the guidelines for style and form first, I assume. Guess I'll keep plowing on!

Hey! We've been pretty quiet here lately. How's everyone doing at Suite 101?

Specifically, how are you handling the new requirment that every arrticle must include at least one image? That could potentially double the time to prepare an article, and requires writers to add some minimal skills of layout artist. How do you all feel about it?

NDG

I have found that one to five images helps page views and visibility, I'm glad they are requiring it. Makes an article look better than just type on a screen.

They have made a nice NOTICEABLE leap in my earnings since I started to actively include at least one if not more images.

Tina:

I hope that turns out to be true in my case. So far my earnings and pave views are too low to tell if the images are doing any good.

But I personally cannot see the benefit of images to the article on the page. The thumbnail image at the top is pretty meaningless. And the ones at the bottom are after all the reading. When I read someone else's article I don't even bother to look at them. They are typically generic photos, apt for the article but not specifically taken for the article. Maybe it is different in the travel section.

So far it is more of a pain in the neck and a waste of time, IMHO. Now, if eventually it means extra earnings commensurate with the amount of time it takes to find, fetch, download, upload, caption, attribute, and add the orignal link to the photos, I'll probably change my mind.

NDG

I'm still loving it! I have 20 articles up, about 2,300 hits, and about $5. I'm not sure how that stacks up, but I think it's a promising start.

Enna:

You're way ahead of me. I have 25 articles up, 754 pages views, and $1.15 earned.

ETA: Although, it's not all bad. One of my articles is now an editor's choice.

NDG

Norman D Gutter said:

Tina:

I hope that turns out to be true in my case. So far my earnings and pave views are too low to tell if the images are doing any good.

But I personally cannot see the benefit of imagews to the article on the page. The thumbnail image at the top is pretty meaningless. And the ones at the bottom are after all the reading. When I read someone else's article I don't even bother to look at them. They are typically generic photos, apt for the article but not specifically taken for the article. Maybe it is different in the travel section.

So far it is more of a pain in the neck and a waste of time, IMHO. Now, if eventually it means extra earnings commensurate with the amount of time it takes to find, fetch, download, upload, caption, attribute, and add the orignal link to the photos, I'll probably change my mind.

NDG

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The more images the better for one because ideally, you'd add keywords on the images which is good SEO. Also, readers may end up seeking out your work on Suite because most people enjoy images when they read. They may click through all of the stuff of youras on that topic.

I know that I personally prefer to read articles where I can really see what they are talking about.

stldenise said:

Does anybody look at the keywords that brought readers to your article, and use those key words to write more stuff? It looks like my most popular title is 10 Wet Outdoor Summer Games. Hmmmm, maybe I should write more about games to play in the yard!

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Yup! I do this all the time!

Denise:

Thanks for the comment. I guess this photo thing depends on how much you consider yourself a photographer. I have barely graduated from film to digital. I have a digital camera, take photos, and can download them to my computer, but that's about it. Figuring out how to print them has been an adventure, not a joy. I've done a little cropping, but can't really figure that whole thing out. And the different file extension names are a mystery. What do they mean, how are they different, why should you chose one over the other? I'll need a week long course in photos to comply with Suite 101.

But, for the American colonial history articles I'm writing, or for the poetry articles, how many photos of Thomas Jefferson or Robert Frost can you attach to an article before it becomes silliness? I suppose for travel articles I can see where multiple photos/images would make sense. But for engineering? How many pictures of a flood does a flood article need?

I do think I figured out Suite's method of cropping for the circular thumbnail. I think it always inserts the photo from the upper left hand corner. So you have to crop the photo from the left and the right and maybe from top and bottom to get it to cernter correctly in the circle.

frustrated,
NDG

ETA: Suite 101's insistance that the writer also be a finder/manipulator of photographs/images is probably a deal-breaker for me. I'm going to take a few days to think it over, but I don't want to deal in photographs. Writing is hard enough without having to spend time researching the other.

Right, easy-peazy. No more than eight steps, per your description. I'll give it a try.

I get photos for my Suite articles from Stock Exchange -- and have for almost 3 years now! Mostly, it takes less than 5 minutes....though I have taken 10 for some harder-to-find images. I haven't used flickr, but keep hearing how great it is!

Its kind of difficult for me not using "I" in movie reviews or TV reviews. I do get a little annoyed with how long they take to review and potentially disable articles, but otherwise its okay. Its nice to be able to write about whatever you want to!