Reselling Your Way to Bulk Happiness

I’ve been writing this series on bulk articles because there seems to be a demand for them. Buyers who want to create a ‘wordy’ site need them and they pay by the pound.

“I need someone to write 20 articles on dog grooming”

OK. So you knuckle down and write five or six a day until you are done. Finally. And you are sick of dog shampoos, nail clipping techniques, and all things having to do with dog hygiene.

Now what? Well, aside from collecting your money for this job, you ought to save your work for cover letters and resale.

First, lets dispense with the legal and ethical issues. When you sell an article to a buyer on oDesk, you are usually selling all rights. Legally, it is considered a ‘work for hire’ and you don’t retain even the right to reuse it in your profile. Unless you ask and get permission to do this. You should ask.

A special note though- If you don’t get paid for some reason, you retain all the rights. Sometimes that is the only silver lining if you get burned on a fixed-price no pay.

What isn’t copyrighted and what you can reuse and resell is the idea the article embodies. After I write this post about reselling articles, I can rewrite it and resell it as long as the expressions I use aren’t straight plagiarism.

In other words (simultaneous cliche and pun!) I could, if I thought there were a market, rewrite this blog post and sell it- maybe for an ebook on writing, or at a site for writing tips or as part of a larger series on making the most money possible from the least amount of work.

What’s the advantage?

Well, the most obvious one is that you and I are finite. It’s a sad fact that no matter how fast we write and for how long, we can only produce so much material in our lifetimes. In order to increase our income we either have to increase how much we sell or increase the price we sell it at. By reselling, I can essentially sell much of the time I already spent researching and writing– twice. It’s as if I had a happy clone of myself who lives in the past and sends me articles to sell.

Here’s a common situation. You are sending a cover letter and you need an article to attach. Aha! Because you are a savvy writer with a folder full of articles on dog grooming, you can send an example article that is exactly what the buyer needs. What could be better? Of course, you sought out a job that matched what you had in stock for resale.

When you get that job, you will be half-way to completion before you start. Rewrites of your own material are much easier to do than writing original content.

How it works in practice

In practice, it takes a while to build up a back stock of articles. But each assignment you complete adds to your collection. Rarely do articles of a general nature go completely stale. Besides, you are going to rewrite them anyhow.

Now, like a stalking cat, you cruise the job sites. The guy who wants articles on general pet care is going to get one of your dog grooming articles in a cover letter. The lady who needs material for her pet store newsletter is going to get one too.

And here’s the real beauty of it all. Because you took the time to learn so much about dog grooming for the 20 article series, you now know enough to write intelligently about other, related subjects. The “Problem Pets” series is going to get a tweaked version of the article in your grooming series, the one on “Difficult Dogs- clipping the problem pooch”.

So take on a few bulk jobs to build your inventory. Take your old articles with you when you are fishing for more work. And resell your way to bulk article happiness.

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