Looks like my last post stirred a little tempest in a teapot, so I thought I’d address the Associated Content issue from an editor’s perspective. It would be easy to assume from my last post that I don’t think you should ever use Associated Content. Quite the contrary.

Should you use Associated Content posts as writing samples? As evidence that you are a published writer? HELL NO. Not for any serious publication, anyway. Do you want to know the secret? What makes editors (not just me) turn their nose up at this?

Two words–editorial review.

As in, there isn’t much doing at Associated Content, and good editors know that. The simple fact is, posts on Associated Content have value to a writer, but not quite in the way most people assume when they start publishing there. Editors know that there’s no real motivation to edit someone’s posts on AC because they are NOT in the business of publishing in the same manner as Travel + Leisure, Poets and Writers, or Spin Magazine. Associated Content is a completely different business model, and doesn’t require the same kind of editorial rigor you’d get from somebody behind the desk at Fangoria or Scottish Life. Continue reading Confessions of an Editor: My Take on Associated Content →