Skyword is a great one-stop shop for providing all of a contributor's needs for an assignment and aligns companies with the writers who have the appropriate expertise.
Pros
- It provides a good structure re timelines ie it's really clear how long you have to work on any given assignment, once accepted. You also receive handy reminder emails that your deadline is approaching in xx hours for instance.
- It's good for being able to access the brief and any ancillary notes/reports all in one location rather than have to deal with multiple emails and downloads from other sources. It's a bit like a one-stop shop for a journalist's brief/commissions.
- The set up for uploading content is well organised and helps in the planning stage for articles. The various sections required help ensure you stick tightly to the given brief.
Cons
- It would be useful to see historical versions of copy that you have uploaded rather than the latest, edited version.
- In some programmes the rules are a bit too prescriptive ie set word counts with not too much variance. Similarly, sometimes you have to almost 'shoe horn' key words into the copy in order to hit the number required. This can make the text sound repetitive and less creative journalistically.
- Not quite sure what the readability scores bring to the party?
Return on Investment
- It's good for me as a freelance contributor and income but I can't put an ROI on it since I'm assigned commissions rather than being the person doing the assigning.
