Business Idea: Articles - already been done, do it better…
At this moment, there is one big thing in the AIS world. That one big thing is pre-written articles. I'm a member of 4 or 5 articles sites and the overall quality of the articles is just OK.
My thought would be to get together 5 people. Each of these 5 write up 20 articles per niche (twice monthly). Thus each writes 40 articles total, across 2 niches. Making 10 niches altogether per month.
Once the first pack of 10 is written, open up a site selling the articles on a subscription basis. They keep paying, they get another lot of articles next month (and so on and forth).
The difference being that this new site would supply a piece of software, free of charge, which would customise the articles so that the content is unique per subscriber.
Logistics
For 1 person to create 40 articles is around 40 hours work, give or take. This includes researching and actual writing time.
Income
Set up the site, and sell 250 spots at $40 each. Income per month (assuming all spots get sold) is $10,000.
Sharing
Each of the 5 gets $2000 per month.
Question
Would you work 40 hours per month for $2000 ?
What makes this idea a bit more unique?
- The articles would be spread out over the 4 week period. All the site I know of give you the articles in one go, which is a bit pointless.
- Every subscriber would have the "rewriting" tool to make articles unique.
I think this is a workable scenario, and could be an interesting opportunity. There would also be lots of upsell opportunities for example: site building scripts, more article packs, hosting and so on.
Downside
- Of course, this is not an AIS by any stretch of the imagination
- Spots might not get sold (at least in the first couple of months)
- Only 5 people writing means potential cover problems (eg sickness, holiday etc)
Of course, not being an AIS is not a major problem - in fact I would quite like to have an interaction business. The cover problem is also not major - it is easily possible to write up 3 article niches instead of 2 to cover your downtime in the following month.
The main problem is spots not being sold. I can't see any way around this…
Anyway, I would appreciate any comments and also what you think of the overall idea. Would you work 40 hours for $2k ?
Comment by burt — May 12, 2006 @ 9:52 am
I forgot to mention that with the right 5 people behind the venture it would be easy as 123 to get people subscribing.
The other option is, of course, to up the price and allow affiliates to sell subscriptions…
Comment by Oli Allen — May 12, 2006 @ 10:58 am
"Every subscriber would have the “rewriting” tool to make articles unique."
Why not go a step further than that and run this tool before sending out the articles? Saving the user some time, and giving them unique articles straight out of the box. Then you could always sell them a PLR manna style tool on top of that, should they wish to customize them further…
Comment by richandzhaoyan — May 12, 2006 @ 5:34 pm
Are you recruiting Gary?
Its a very tempting offer and certainly $2000 for 40 hours work would go down well - unforunately this last couple of months I havent had time to blog - or even post on others blogs, never mind spend 40 hours writing articles! Still, for $2000 I am sure I could find a couple of hours a day…..
Just a thought, I know you have a fair bit of experience of contracting out - how much would it cost you to have this amount of articles professionally written every month?
Would you not be better off contracting out the article writing and then taking 100% of the sign up sales? - Damn, I might be doing myself out of a nice evening job here???
Definately worth looking into though I reckon - the deal for the subscribers sounds pretty good and I would think the take up should be worthwhile.
If you could get it off the ground, then it wouldnt be a big step to carry on and offer ready made adsense sites as well, either as an add on to the subscription or as a seperate package - should lead to a lot of affiliate sales as well I would imagine, going by forum posts on the NPM site I was a member of a while back.
Cheers,
Rich
Comment by richandzhaoyan — May 12, 2006 @ 5:51 pm
Been thinking again while typing the last post.
The idea of 5 people working together and being reliant on the others would kind of worry me. If one of the writers went off the boil a little or was late submitting, it could cause a lot of extra work for the others, maybe at short notice.
Another idea - maybe a fair bit harder to implement - would be to have more writers but to have kind of a monthly opt in scheme - whereby the writers could select which articles they would like to write - and would only get a percentage on the articles they have submitted. ie, if they only submit 10 articles one month they would only recieve $1000 for the month - If they need a bit more cash, they could opt to do 30 articles in a month and would recieve $3000.
I know it sounds more complicated but it would worry me if I was running the show that when the deadline was up for releasing the articles to the subscriber, they would not have been submitted by all 5 members of the team. Also, quality may be a problem if it comes to knocking them out at the last minute.
Definately an interesting proposition though and if you do plan to go ahead with it, let us know how it goes.
Cheers,
Rich
Comment by burt — May 13, 2006 @ 10:05 am
Rich, that is a danger. Of course the 5 people chosen would be "known" to each other. That should negate the possibility of major problems…
I could of course pay some 3rd world workers to create articles - this costs about $4 or $5 per article generally. But the quality of articles is generally quite poor…
Oli, that's certainly an idea - but a good hook is to give away software…
I also had the thought of outsourcing the creation of 1 or 2 ebooks per month as well. So of the 10 Niches, 2 of them also have eBooks - then also make an eBook cover graphic as well.
I feel there is a massive gap in the market for *quality* articles & extras. I'll do some more research.
I'm still pondering the logistics of this idea, so any input would be appreciated.
Comment by boo — May 13, 2006 @ 11:16 am
What a cracking idea - its sparked a bit of a lightbulb moment for me. I absolutely love writing (spend far too much time writing my novel when I should be working…), so this idea appeals greatly. My stumbling block with when it comes to writing articles/ebooks is coming up with the initial idea/niche - once I've got a topic I can write quality content no problem. So, I'd definitely be up for writing some articles provided someone tells me what to write them about!
Comment by Dave — May 13, 2006 @ 6:07 pm
Good idea - I'd be happy to submit articles but I don't have time to write loads of them - maybe two or three per month or whatever I could fit in. Researching them is the time consuming part - banging 'em out once you've done that is only an hour or so. I wrote this one in my lunchtime at work but researching it took a while longer….
http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Cosmetic-Dentistry—Latest-Techniques-Explained&id=193405
Happy to contribute if I can.
Dave
Comment by Will — May 14, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
Of course the 5 people chosen would be “known” to each other. That should negate the possibility of major problems…
I wouldn't necessarily agree with this, Gary, and 'should' isn't a word I'd like to make a business dependent upon. I've known many partnerships to fail even though the partners were known to each other and had binding contracts.
Things happen, people's situations change, people change.
Also, as in any of these types of article memberships, the quality of content will always vary depending on a variety of human factors.
Where's the quality control? What process would be used to ensure authors adhere to their delivery schedules? What if partners drop out? Who has the final say about whether content is up to scratch and what if it wasn't?
It's a good idea, but also inherently risky especially because it hinges on so many people.
Comment by Oli Allen — May 14, 2006 @ 10:29 pm
"but also inherently risky"
Let's be honest, what small business isn't?
Comment by burt — May 14, 2006 @ 11:11 pm
Will; some good points you raise. I've never been one to worry about risk. I don't say "what if…" at all, ever.
As Oli points out, risk is something that is necessary in all walks of life. Everytime you cross the road you run the risk of being knocked over
All; I'm still working out the logistics of the plan, and have some ideas that I've put down on paper. What I'll do is work out the kinks as best I can, then get in touch with people to see who would be interested.
Maybe it's a goer, maybe not. What I know I need is a business that makes me work rather than businesses which make me not work
Comment by Will — May 15, 2006 @ 12:32 am
The question is; what processes could be put in place to reduce the risks?
Comment by Will — May 15, 2006 @ 12:53 am
"Everytime you cross the road you run the risk of being knocked over"
Sure, but then I would only cross the road after checking for traffic and I'd keep my eyes open!
Comment by Andrew — May 20, 2006 @ 1:19 am
40 hours a month for $2k is not bad. I think your idea is workable if you sell all the spots and have quality articles. Working in other revenue sources will not be a problem with 5 competent people at the helm. Good luck with the venture.
Comment by Oli Allen — June 9, 2006 @ 2:16 pm
So, have the recent events with the KWA articles put you off doing something like this much?
Comment by burt — June 9, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
I know, what an absolute balls-up. I had to laugh though.
Comment by Chris H — June 22, 2006 @ 3:51 pm
40 hours a month seems a fair whack for anyone already working full time. Certainly for me I doubt if it would be logistically possible. I could certainly do a 'few' articles per month on a piecework basis. Contracting to do 40 per month is way out of my ability and resources.
Have you thought about offering this to students to supplement their grant/income whatever?
Another thought that springs to mind is to source these from a 'developing' country where english language skills and net access tend to be very good, such as India?
Comment by burt — June 22, 2006 @ 7:46 pm
Hiya Chris, thanks for your thoughts. Sure this isn't suitable for those in full time employment. Good idea about getting students involved though!
Comment by Oli Allen — June 22, 2006 @ 8:40 pm
"Have you thought about offering this to students to supplement their grant/income whatever?"
This is a pretty good idea, and colleges etc may even be able to put interested students in touch with you.
When I was at college we used to get emails from the staff about little web dev jobs etc that had been sent to them… Couldn't hurt to ask