After writing for Associated Content for over three years, and more recently for Suite101, for just three months now, I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on the pros and cons of each.
Pros:
Associated Content – The best thing about writing for Associated Content is the fact that writers get paid twice, first for initial acceptance of articles, and then again for the number of hits the article gets. And not only that, the pay comes in two ways. AC pays for each article it accepts right away, which means many small payments over the course of a month. Then they also pay out a bonus once a month based on the number of hits that all of a writer’s articles have received for the month. Another bonus is that writers can write about pretty much anything they want to write about, which makes coming up with titles easier.
Suite101 – The best thing about writing for Suite101 is that articles get published as soon as the author submits them; no waiting for an editor to accept them. Another plus is the fact that the sky is limit as far as what authors can write about; again this makes finding topics rather easy. Something else that’s nice is that the site has editors to help authors improve their articles; though some might see this as an annoyance, most come to find it really helpful, at least those that stick around. Not only do the editors help spot typos, and problems with sentence structure, they also give advice to help authors write articles that will get more hits, which helps the bottom line.
Cons:
Associated Content – The biggest problem writing for Associated Content is the time lag between when an article is submitted and when it’s accepted. AC works by the queue method, articles written go into a user queue and sit there till an editor either approves or rejects them. If an author is prolific, the queue starts to grow long and the time to publish grows even longer sometimes causing the information in the article to grow stale or out of date. Another negative of course, is that sometimes articles get rejected, and the process for it seems random. This makes it more difficult to write for the site because it makes finding titles harder.
Suite101 – The biggest problem with Suite101, by far, is the lack of an upfront payment. Even something small would help. With no upfront payment for articles, authors have to wait months sometimes even years before they start to see any real financial payoff; thus the writers that stick around tend to do so out of a love of writing, rather than as a means of income.
Comparing the two sites is like doing so with apples and oranges; both offer writers a relatively easy path to publication; both allow authors to pick their own titles, and both pay for number of hits an article receives, though Suite101 articles appear to be less “seen” on the Internet than those for AC, which means more money. On the other hand, Suite101 has a bonus feature where the more articles you write the bigger bonus you get, based on hits; so, it appears, for now at least, that if you stick with this site, you’ll eventually start making some decent money.