Style guides, CE's, and conflicting guidance can all create problems when you are trying to write copy for Demand Studios. One of the most disturbing events is the inevitable ridiculous rewrite request. If your beautifully crafted article on the architecture of Rome has been sent back for a rewrite because you didn't include the best place to get pizza in Italy, or your article about ideas for a baby's birthday party has been sent back because you didn't include ALL of the different types of birthday parties a baby could have, what do you do? Try to do what the CE has asked for? Delete the article? Send an appeal?
Try to Accomodate the CE
This is a dangerous approach, in my opinion. If a CE is unreasonable enough to send a ridiculous rewrite, they are also unreasonable enough to reject your attempt to fix it.
Delete the article and take it elsewhere
This approach makes sense, if you have a place to put it that doesn't require any tweaking, changing, etc. AND if you make sure to change the title, since that title is Demand Studios property.
Appeal
The appeal is my favorite method. After all, it's a perfectly good article, and all the time I spent writing it shouldn't be wasted because a CE is still getting 'broken in'. So, what's the secret to getting an appeal approved? A little give and take. Find at least one thing in the CE's request that makes sense. Make that change. Send off an email as per the DS rewrite appeal process, and briefly explain that rewrite request doesn't conform to the style guide for whatever reason, but that you have made changes in an attempt to address the CE's concerns. Request a review of the current article, to ensure that the article is within DS standards before you send it back to the CE.
The reasons this works are as follows: Even if the CE's requests are unreasonable, the editorial staff will probably find some way to agree with them in some little way just so they don't seem to be taking sides. You'll end up changing something anyway, so why not pick the change yourself? Plus, if you are proactive in making the changes, it doesn't look like you're just being stubborn and complaining. Finally, and this is the key point, it makes things easy for the editorial staff. All they have to do is read your article, and say 'yes, that's fine' instead of trying to do the CE's job. I'm not guaranteeing this 100%, all I know is that it's worked for me, and has cut down the time I spend on rewrites by 80%.
I usually just take the rewrites and put them on eHow. Most of them have done pretty well there so far. What's weird is that one of those was recently pulled in the latest eHow purge. It was one of those articles that was written perfectly fine but was of a subjective nature, so the CE felt free reign to say that it should have been different. I haven't found appealing to be that useful, personally. They tend to want to accommodate the CEs, even if they offer a compromise.
ReplyDeleteBut what do you with non How To articles? I write Strategy and About and How Does- none of which can go on eHow. Appealing works for me, the vast majority of the time. I think there has only been one time when I got an answer I reallly didn't like back. The rest of the time, the editorial desk seems to be interested in putting out the article, not getting some bizarre information requested by the CE.
ReplyDeleteI have reworked them a little to make them into how tos. If they won't work well as a how to, I sometimes put them on HubPages.
ReplyDeleteStrategy, About, and How Does articles are all great for Suite101.
ReplyDelete