In doing a Constant Content review I want to achieve two things. First is to take a brief look at the market for freelance writing jobs online, second is to point you in the direction of what I believe to be the best site for pure writers rather than programmers, illustrators, administrator, etc.

There are probably hundreds of sites offering freelance work online. Thousands of people earn a living from the comfort of their own homes by finding jobs via Elance, ODesk, Guru.com, etc. I’m not mentioning those through any favoritism, they’re just the ones I’ve explored personally.

The main challenge with these kind of sites – and with making a living writing online – is getting known and being able to earn a reasonable amount. People in different economic regions of the world might be able to work for far less than you or I would consider a “living wage”. That can make “global” sites like these difficult to break into.

A friend of mine does use one of the above, and makes a decent living while at the same time traveling around Europe – but she estimates it took her a year of work to establish the clients who would pay enough to make that possible.

Constant Content is not like any of the many freelance job sites that provide multiple services. At Constant Content they want writers. Period. Really it started out as a site for article and blog writers, but it has developed and you can now find work copywriting, writing press releases, writing ebooks, technical articles and more.

Signing up to write for Constant Content is free and you can either submit your own work on spec or respond to customer requests – which are updated daily. You can write on just about any subject you can think of and stand a chance of having it picked up, or focus on subjects required by Constant Contents considerable list of customers. Sounds good so far?

The down-side is that they have quite strict standards. This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand you need to submit good work or you will have it kicked out. It’s no good disagreeing (and I’ve done so myself on occasions) – they set the rules so work with them or try elsewhere. The plus side is that customers in general pay way better at Constant Content than at most other sites that pay for writing online.

My own experience is one of struggling at first. I had several articles rejected for reasons I thought way too picky. In fact I pretty much gave up on them. Then one of the articles I submitted got picked up and I earned a few bucks. Then another. Then I received a Private Request – which is when a customer comes to you direct, rather than offering work to everyone.

Getting Private Requests means you don’t have to write and hope people want your article, you write to a clearly defined brief. You can’t let standards drop though, because those darned editors will still review your work – and your customer has the right to reject if it’s not up to scratch!

However, having more regular customers obviously helps income. For me the result is that over the last 12 months I’ve earned a five figure sum over there. Not enough to make a full-time living, but then I don’t do it full time.

I should also point out that while joining is free, they do deduct a commission. They do the work to find the customers after all, so that’s to be expected. At 35% some people find it high – certainly higher than other freelance sites – but you get to set your own prices so you can take this into account.

If you look at the output of some of the writers you can estimate that that top people must be earning 40 or 50K – possibly more. Success at Constant Content is not easy but in my case it was certainly worth it. If you want to give them a try – and what have you got to lose – study what others have written to get an idea of acceptable style, read the rules, then submit an article. If it gets rejected don’t take offense, take their comments as constructive criticism and work with them. Like any business transaction, building up a good relationship will pay dividends in the end.