Reclaiming Demand Studios Titles

By Demand Studios Review Editorial

Posted On 10/23/10:

When writing for Demand Media Studios, you will eventually come upon a time when you simply can't complete an assignment on time.

The dreaded red title with the approaching deadline is staring you in the face and you know full well you can't research and write it before it expires.

So what do you do? Just let it expire and miss out on that title you thought so promising when you claimed it? Luckily, you need not go that route. You can simply unclaim and then reclaim it.

I want to make a point to say that this is not a sure bet. Sometimes you will unclaim the article and it won't appear in the queue.

Someone else may have quickly snatched it up. After all, Demand Studios now has thousands of writers, all of whom are competing for titles.

Other times, the system just doesn't drop the title into the queue right away. I have actually unclaimed several articles at once, only to find one or two show up, while the others were mysteriously missing. I then checked a few minutes later and there was that missing article.

Like I said, though, sometimes articles will never reappear. So the unclaim, reclaim move should be one of last resort. It's better than just letting that article expire, however, so it's worth knowing this option is available.

You can only pull this trick a couple of times on the same article before it won't let you reclaim it again, so make sure to write it the second time around.

There is some debate as to whether you are allowed to let a rewrite expire and then reclaim it. Usually they won't show up for you in the queue, but someone recently mentioned on the Demand Studios forum that they found one of their expired rewrites and were considering claiming it.

It's possible this was just a similar title, as there are lots of those in the Demand Media Studios queue. If it was indeed her expired rewrite, it's possible that she could get reprimanded for reclaiming it.

One of the staff moderators said a while back in the forum that writers are not allowed to reclaim expired rewrites, so tread lightly.

In the event of rewrites you don't want to complete, it's best to just let it go and find a similar title in the queue. 

Copy and paste your article into a Word doc and save it for later use (once the rewrite expires, you won't be able to view the article, unlike when an article is rejected).

Wait until the rewrite has expired and then submit the article under that similar title. Don't submit it while the rewrite is still showing up on your work desk or you run the risk of tripping the dreaded plagarism flag. 

If you can't find a similar title, publish the article on your own blog or website. If you don't have one, publish it on HubPages. That way you can still earn some ad revenue from it. It's better than nothing.

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