How To Keep Track of Article Submissions

Over the course of a writer's life, he will have written thousands of pieces on many different subjects for many different people.  However, not every writer is organized about their work.  While his writing style is great and his format superb, he may not posses the necessary level of organization that every writer must have.  When a writer decides to work for clients in helping them create articles, it can become difficult sometimes to manage all of them.  Here's how to organize your articles so you can determine which ones have already been submitted and printed.

Through the process of organizing your works, you sort of build a portfolio that you may then look back on to perfect your style of writing.  Without this organization, there is a certain level of improvement that a writer may not be able to achieve.  He should then, look at his previous works as bench marks rather then just a completed project.

One of the best ways to keep track of submitted articles is to compile them into a computer filing system.  I've built my own system and with it I've created folders for each site that I write for.  The organization process is difficult to begin but in the long run it's definitely worth the time spent.

Within these folders categorize each site that you've worked for.  Create folders inside of each one that will be labeled with the names "submitted" and "un-submitted," and if possible label a third folder with, "refused articles."  The "submitted" folder will house articles that the writer has recently submitted, obviously.  The "un-submitted" folder will house articles that an author may have been working on but had not yet turned in, and the final folder will house articles that have been refused for various reasons.  The "refused articles" folder will more than likely be a most reliable asset with regards to keeping a constant update with your client's demands.  Taking the time to analyze a refused article will then allow a user to not only find out the flaws about their own level of writing, but it will allow you to understand what the client really wants out of a writer, most of the time.

Now, the third step is not quite as important in terms of organization, but it can definitely help you out with gaining a better relationship with clients.  Keeping a folder that houses articles based on who they may have been written for will eliminate the need for creating folders for each site an author writes for.  Keep in mind however that it may take less time, and it will take more folders and can possibly become a hassle to deal with.  However, within each folder should be another two folders, one for accepted articles and the other for rejected articles, for obvious reasons.  The two folders will make it a lot more simple to analyze a client and better predict what the average needs of a client will be.

In the long run, organization can only benefit you.  It won't make a client pay more, but it will help to make more money.  Keeping organized is a nice way to stay away from the hassle of going through each and every article that a ghost writer writes just to find the third one he wrote.  Also, it'll help to learn to better analyze flaws and then to work to perfect them, so that it will be more possible to stay away from future failures.