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I'd be interested in more info on Textbroker and Writer Access. I got a four-star rating on Textbroker a while back, but haven't written anything there because they were consistently paying about 30% of what other sites paid at the time. I'm not familiar with Writer Access, but last I heard they were somewhere in the same tier. If that's changed, I'd definitely like to know. What kind of rates were you getting from clients to add up to those paychecks?
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Jul 31, 2013 08:51
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Writer Access is definitely more than Textbroker. The most common articles are 200 words for $5.18; that's the three star level. A 300 word article is $8.06 on the three star level. There are very rarely four star articles, however. Most of the four star articles I get are direct orders. Those are usually 500 word articles for about $20. Textbroker is still very low, but it's more about quantity. The group that I write most commonly for is 300 word articles that each pay $6.08. That's not a lot, but they usually only take 10 minutes because they're just news article summaries.
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Jul 31, 2013 11:08
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Thirded actually, we do have a load of people who know way too much on subjects.
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Jul 31, 2013 16:00
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Honestly a goon-run freelance site sounds like a good idea in theory, but in practice it would end up in beta for about four years before being abandoned after a gigantic influx of orders about the history of bronies. Still, if there was enough interest in it, it could be developed as a sort of eLance or oDesk project that handled web content as well as web development work. I'm a programmer so I would know how to make a website like this run, but I wouldn't know how to market it or acquire clients. I hate the way eLance and oDesk runs and works because of their complex bidding and proposal structure. I'd like to see something more like Fiverr but for higher quality work, maybe with separate writing packages, website packages and writing + web packages laid out in a professional format, with freelance workers that have undergone some form of vetting/testing.
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Jul 31, 2013 23:34
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I agree with the assessment. A goon-run site sounds good, but in the end it's still a goon project and I wouldn't count on it to go anywhere, even if it was developed. ELance and oDesk have the common issue that too many people are willing to work for what the rest of us consider unreasonably low prices. We produce high quality work, but we can't compete with people who are willing to write 1,000 word projects for $2 and provide passable quality. It's part of why I like Textbroker's system so much -- it has benefits for writers including the autoaccept period, the guaranteed pay rate for star levels and the variable assignments available. I just wish they would give us all a raise. Textbroker is also very draconian on their forums, which I suggest never visiting. You can't post outside website links or even e-mail addresses without the admins editing them out within an hour. Compare that to how rarely the actual article reviews are -- I just had about 25 of my 100 unreviewed articles reviewed, and that was the first review since March -- and I wonder if they're focusing their resources appropriately. I've heard that they've spent quite a bit of time recently in hiring new writers, which is part of why the OO pool isn't growing. They also raised the prices clients pay, but the extra goes to them for overhead and writers don't see an extra cent. I want to expand the sites I write for, and one thing I've done recently is joined the Freedom with Writing mailing list (not a referral link, it's just a free e-mail newsletter.) Only about half of messages they send out are any use to me, but they've mentioned some sites I wasn't aware of and they tend to avoid the sites like Elance specifically because of the underbidding problem. I wonder if it might be helpful to anyone here, so there's the link. Kilo India, what is your work schedule like to make that kind of money through TB and WA? I personally have a huge problem burning out if I try to jump in too much too fast, so while I'm making 3x more than I did through TB than when I started, I'm still making a pittance compared to you. Do you set a monetary goal per day, or a time goal, or just work as you find work? I need to learn from those more successful than I am, so any tips you have to offer are much appreciated.
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Aug 1, 2013 00:16
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Thanks for the newsletter link, I'll sign up. I'm very vigilant about keeping updated on new sites, because I understand that work fluctuates, but it seems like there's always one or two major sites and that other sites don't really become popular until those go down. Textbroker used to review fairly regularly at the beginning of the year, at least for my account, but they've only reviewed me about once every six weeks lately. The review process is just ridiculous. They really should grade on an average of writing as a whole, not just the five last articles. Or at least they should grade more than five. It's just really dumb, because if you do a sequence of low star articles and that just *happens* to be the one they stop on, you're screwed. To be honest, I don't work very hard. If articles that I really like come in, I'll work about 12 hours a day, but that's rare. I usually work anywhere between 6 to 8 hours a day, and I usually average about $60 to $80 an hour. However, I do try to work a little every day, though Sundays are usually dead. I try to make at minimum $200 every day before I stop, and it's usually not very hard. Otherwise I honestly just dick around on the computer on and off. I experienced some problems with burnout early on, but they just seem to have faded away. In the beginning, I focused on always working, but that was a mistake. Now if the articles aren't good enough, I do something else so that I'm refreshed when good articles do come in. I also just give my work a once over and then run it through Grammar Check (chrome plugin), and that seems good enough--my clients are always pretty happy. If anyone is interested, my final tally for July ended up like this: Textbroker - $2,494.96 Writer Access - $7,519.91 Edit: I should note that I think in part my success is because I type at 120 WPM with almost 100% accuracy. I'm not sure how much that affects this, but I feel like it might be contributing to my ability to beat things out quickly.
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Aug 1, 2013 06:22
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I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea that you basically wrote the equivalent of two novels plus in one month. I can't imagine doing that for a pay by the word gig. There's really that much work available on Writer Access regularly? My current writing gigs are in the $25/400 range but it's probably more involved work than what goes into a Writer Access/Textbroker article. Have to give them another look. kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Aug 1, 2013 |
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Aug 1, 2013 06:37
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kazmeyer posted:I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea that you basically wrote the equivalent of two novels plus in one month. I can't imagine doing that for a pay by the word gig. There's really that much work available on Writer Access regularly? This right here, and I'm someone who literally HAS written two novels in a month as an insane double-nanowrimo effort. I can't decide if I'm pickier about the articles I write or I just don't work fast enough. I'm a fairly fast and accurate typist, but I'm not confident in picking up certain types of articles simply because of the research involved. If I do a big project on a topic I've never done before, then I'll pick up smaller articles on the same subject, but I don't generally want to waste half an hour on a $6 articles. I definitely need to check out Writer Access, though, that sounds awesome. Any tips for applying to Writer Access? I know Textbroker has a few quirks with their interpretation of the AP style guide, so I wonder what the big pitfalls are for WA.
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Aug 1, 2013 07:24
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I emailed Daily Transcription about their application being borked. They gave me this link for the transcription test: http://dailytrans.com/homet.html So if anyone is interested in them and need it, there you go.
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Aug 1, 2013 23:00
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Right now on Writer Access there are 261 articles available at 8.26 each and each of them are only 200 words long. No one seems to be doing these articles but me; I've done about 30 of them so far and I think I might end up doing *all* of them. I'm not really sure why, but it does appear like I'm doing about a tenth of the work on the website. I mean, like a tenth of all the work available on the website. Not really sure what's going on, because this isn't group work; it's available to anyone to complete. I can't be specific about this work because there's an NDA, but this client puts in a lot of work on Writer Access that *LOOKS* like it takes a lot of research but if you actually read the instructions you'll find it's only a few minutes of work max. There really aren't any potential pitfalls for Writer Access. I've never had anything bounced back from the editors, and the clients ask for revisions maybe 5% of the time. They're usually super minor things, too, and the clients seem way nicer than Textbroker too. I did have one client from hell that wanted me to do an article about technological innovations that hadn't been reported *anywhere,* but even he eventually accepted my article. I may write fast. I did an informational 10,000 word eBook yesterday that took me about 3 hours, including the editing and clean up work. I genuinely don't know how that compares to other people; I'd be interested in knowing. Adnachiel--thanks! I was one of the people who ended up with the weird application page, I needed that. Edit: I should note, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm bragging. I actually thought twice about posting because posting this actually hurts me--it takes work away from me and (hopefully) gives it to some of you. But I genuinely want to help people, even if it hurts me a little, because this thread was super useful to me this year. Edit 2: Re the researching thing, you have to keep in mind that if you really want to do this for a month or more, you won't be researching things every single time. For instance, early this month I needed to learn about umbrella insurance policies for an article. Since then though, I've written at least 20 articles about umbrella insurance without having to do additional research. There's an initial time investment but really, really a lot of the work on the internet concerns insurance, real estate, finance and for some reason cosmetic surgery. Kilo India fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 10:47
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It frankly sounds like you are some kind of hyper-motivated writing AI. Good for you though! That is some serious bank for one month.
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Aug 2, 2013 16:10
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For real. It would take me ages to write 10,000 words on anything even if I was an expert. I would be making like 5 cents an hour. Keep kicking rear end man.
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Aug 2, 2013 16:49
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I love your status report because it gives me more hope. I have the ability to pump out that kind of volume, with or without research, I just kind of hit a wall now and then with motivation and assignment availability. Hell, if I made 20% of what you do, my money problems right now would be completely solved. I doubt I'll ever make $10,000 a month doing this (maybe publishing a novel eventually or something) but you make $2000-3000 look hella attainable.
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Aug 2, 2013 18:12
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Yeah, seriously. I think we were all a bit skeptical at first because that is a remarkable level of output; I could probably keep up with you for a day or two if the topics were things I knew well, but by the end of a month of that I'd be copy-pasting lorem ipsum.  Impressive work, and thanks for the information -- I put in my application to Writer Access on Wednesday and will be looking into these writer groups.
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Aug 2, 2013 20:27
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I ended up making $714 yesterday on those $8.26 articles, and they were all accepted already -- not a single revision, just money in the bank. I left about 50 of them in the pool so the client didn't get sick of me, which means there was a lot of work out there for everyone else too. I really genuinely think this is something that anyone can do, it's just that I think the orders on Writer Access look a little intimidating to begin with because they have such lengthy instructions. Nighthand--I think you're where I was at the beginning of the year. I looked at my income and wondered where I suddenly went up. On my best day I was *always* capable of producing at least $300, I just wasn't always capable of focusing. Even about two years ago when I first started on Textbroker I was able to do at least $30 an hour, which is fairly decent. I think I had a breakthrough a couple months ago for a few reasons: 1. I looked at my numbers and realized it was really, truly possible for me to make a decent income. Before I was just trudging along because I felt like it was something I was doing because I couldn't get a job (long story, but I've been trying to get work for a while; still am, really). Once I realized that it wasn't something I was doing because I failed at something else, but that it was something I was actually good at, I felt way more motivated. 2. I got a lot of support from my friends. At first I was hesitant to tell people what I was doing for work because I thought they'd think I was a loser, but when I started the reactions were more like "you're making WHAT doing WHAT?! How can I get in on that!?" 3. I felt weird. I didn't understand why I was making so much money doing something when other people could be doing it too. It took a while to believe it was a legitimate thing people could do, and that other people were doing it too. 4. I learned to listen to myself and take breaks when necessary. If I sit down and say "I'm working 6 hours" and get unmotivated 2 hours through then I'll just end up dicking around on the internet for 4 hours and getting 2 hours of work done. If I just go away and come back, I can get the full 6 hours completed. 5. I started tracking my numbers better. I don't do it much anymore, but it really helped in the beginning. When I could actually see myself making $300, then $400, then $500 a day I felt like I was truly progressing and I could see how WORK = DOLLARS. It's an experience way unlike working for someone else because I was used to working very hard and not seeing any quantifiable difference. I hope some of this helps. I'd be glad to talk to you one-on-one too if this gets too irritating for the thread. EDIT: Sorry one last important thing (I think people are beginning to see how many words I write now, god) -- if you're going to do this seriously please get an ergonomic set up right now. I failed to do this in the beginning and I definitely screwed my wrists up a little when I started pumping out higher volumes. I thought my setup was fine, which it was for casual use, but I eventually discovered that high volume work is a totally different animal. If you have the right setup you will also find yourself way less fatigued on a mental level, too. Kilo India fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Aug 3, 2013 |
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Aug 3, 2013 03:03
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Kilo India posted:
You are approximately one million times faster than everyone else ever.
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Aug 4, 2013 15:55
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Doghouse posted:You are approximately one million times faster than everyone else ever. I did the math on that, and 10,000 words divided by 180 minutes (3 hours) is 55 words a minute. Non-stop. With no breaks whatsoever. You are a beep-boop robot, but now I want to get into writing and transcription stuff because I'm unemployed and honestly, gently caress being unemployed, I post all day on forums anyways.
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Aug 5, 2013 01:15
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I wanted to let everyone who might be on the fence about Tutor.com know that I've signed up for it and so far have had a great experience. It's extremely flexible, the mentors are friendly and I'm really enjoying the tutoring itself. I got my first paycheck today, it was only for a few hours of work but it went right into savings without any issues. Great recommendation! The entire application-to-starting process took about 2 1/2 weeks. I spoke with a tax adviser who recommended I keep 20% of earnings for taxes when I file, and since I'm having it all put straight into savings I think that will work out. Highly recommend the service for those who need a part time job that's very flexible! Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 13:19
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Wiggy Marie posted:I wanted to let everyone who might be on the fence about Tutor.com know that I've signed up for it and so far have had a great experience. It's extremely flexible, the mentors are friendly and I'm really enjoying the tutoring itself. I got my first paycheck today, it was only for a few hours of work but it went right into savings without any issues. Great recommendation! So glad that worked out for you! It was a life-saver for me when the pizza place I worked at during college started to lose business. Also, the online tutoring I did here directly prepared me for the online teaching position I currently hold.
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Aug 5, 2013 15:34
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I might have to check that out. I'm an accounting major and graduate in the fall and just need to take auditing. They seem to want a degree for accounting but maybe they can be flexible.
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Aug 5, 2013 17:28
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Spartan421 posted:I might have to check that out. I'm an accounting major and graduate in the fall and just need to take auditing. They seem to want a degree for accounting but maybe they can be flexible. That's a bit odd. Are the Accounting positions different from all the others? I wouldn't know, as I left when they were in the middle of rolling out that program, but I always saw "you have to either have a bachelor's degree or be currently enrolled in college".
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Aug 5, 2013 17:39
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I've applied at Writer's Acces and Textbroker. I've read that WA has a second application round, is that accurate?
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Aug 5, 2013 19:49
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Udelar posted:So glad that worked out for you! It was a life-saver for me when the pizza place I worked at during college started to lose business. Also, the online tutoring I did here directly prepared me for the online teaching position I currently hold. This is what it's going to be for me. My schedule is completely insane, so being able to log in whenever I want is a HUGE benefit. Spartan421 posted:I might have to check that out. I'm an accounting major and graduate in the fall and just need to take auditing. They seem to want a degree for accounting but maybe they can be flexible. I pulled up the test to check on this for you. In the actual test, it only asks if you're a CPA with a current certification: Tutor.com posted:
I say go for it!
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Aug 5, 2013 21:09
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Found another relatively new content site, Prevently. Looks like they pay $10 a post and $3 to edit a post, it's a healthcare site so that rate seems low. It may still be higher paying than some Textbroker clones though. Not sure how much work they have available either. 43k likes on Facebook shows that it's got some traction already, which is interesting because Google also shows me that the site was registered on May 29, 2013.
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Aug 6, 2013 08:20
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rocinante posted:Found another relatively new content site, Prevently. Looks like they pay $10 a post and $3 to edit a post, it's a healthcare site so that rate seems low. You can buy thousands of likes on fiverr. I'm sure that is what they're doing.
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Aug 6, 2013 14:33
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Stupid question I haven't seen answered by the faqs on the various freelance writing sites yet: when you submit a writing sample while signing up do they try to take ownership of that sample or do you retain it? I've got some stuff written on my blog that I could send off but I'm kind of concerned about that sort of thing.
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Aug 7, 2013 01:23
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Parts Kit posted:Stupid question I haven't seen answered by the faqs on the various freelance writing sites yet: when you submit a writing sample while signing up do they try to take ownership of that sample or do you retain it? I've got some stuff written on my blog that I could send off but I'm kind of concerned about that sort of thing. You retain it, unless their application process specifically states otherwise.
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Aug 7, 2013 01:35
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kazmeyer posted:You retain it, unless their application process specifically states otherwise.
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Aug 7, 2013 04:56
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So is the whole anonymous writer/client thing a legal issue or a money issue? I met a writer who I really liked on Textbroker and it kinda sucks that I can't bring him on as a credited freelancer.
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Aug 7, 2013 16:21
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Textbroker is draconian about it because they don't want to lose their writers to other sites, because then they aren't making money. I've seen some clients ask for writer bios as part of assignments so they can credit the writer, it might be possible to then hunt down the writer in a different context for direct communication. Certainly nothing stops a writer from having multiple gigs, TB just doesn't like you talking about them and edits out any links or names.
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Aug 7, 2013 16:52
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Nighthand posted:Textbroker is draconian about it because they don't want to lose their writers to other sites, because then they aren't making money. I've seen some clients ask for writer bios as part of assignments so they can credit the writer, it might be possible to then hunt down the writer in a different context for direct communication. Certainly nothing stops a writer from having multiple gigs, TB just doesn't like you talking about them and edits out any links or names. I figured. Scummy, but smart. Do you think there'd be a market for a similar site that's built around writers doing cheap copy (TB price range) if they got visibility and a resume out of it? It seems like most of the markets for quickie content are only popular because they're the only places available. edit: nevermind saw the OP
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Aug 7, 2013 17:36
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thylacine posted:I've applied at Writer's Acces and Textbroker. I've read that WA has a second application round, is that accurate? I just heard back from WA after the initial application, I was accepted. They want me to fill out a detailed profile, submit a paypal email and W9, and take a writing test to establish starting star level. Specifically: quote:The Writing Test
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Aug 8, 2013 03:53
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Yeah, I took it today. I hosed up on the "remove words that don't really need to be there" part and only got a 31/44.
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Aug 8, 2013 04:35
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Any tips for the test? I'm going to work on all of that tomorrow, since I'm too tired to bother tonight.
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Aug 8, 2013 04:51
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Take it slow and give things a lot of thought. The beginning of it's going to seem easy as hell, just basic spelling/grammar type stuff, but once they get into the specialty business writing/SEO it gets a bit tougher. There's an annoying amount of stuff that comes down to "well, technically this or that is acceptable, but we prefer this".
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Aug 8, 2013 05:12
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How many industries do you all have on your profile? Also, I started on textbroker yesterday. This is a great job for someone who likes to read about industrial machinery that they don't really understand but think are neat.
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Aug 8, 2013 05:42
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I did great on the Writer's Access test until they started giving me ridiculous questions like that weird inkjet printer one and the SEO questions. And the word elimination questions, because obviously I'm really verbose. I actually didn't score well, but they still placed me in 4, so don't stress out about it too much. I've never felt like I was missing anything by not being a 5 and I get 5 star solos all the time. This week has been really good for anyone at a 4 star level on Writer's Access. There have been hundreds of 4 star articles pumped through. Last night there were $10 articles that were just 300 word product descriptions, and they were ones that allow "creative flair." Those are always way more fun than the professional ones. Writer access tip: the same people tend to put through a lot of articles at once, in phases. You should always pick up at least one article from any new names you see, because you can only submit ONE article for a client at first. Once they approve your first article, though, you can submit as many as you want. So as long as you've cleared one article for them, you can take advantage of those giant 200 article batches. Otherwise you'd have to submit one and then wait while other people scoop them up. Textbroker tip: there have been new teams lately, I noticed. The new teams are at the back of the list, around page 24/25. I got on a law one and a health one so far that were both offering decent articles just by applying to the back page regularly.
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Aug 8, 2013 07:52
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Does anybody know a free program that will convert .ds2 files to mp3? I think .ds2 is the proprietary Olympus format for their digital voice recorders, so transcription software probably isn't written to do them. Edit: Ended up using the free version of NCH's Switch program: http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html ohnobugs fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 8, 2013 20:47
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If anyone wants to get in on this, it's happening again over at Writer Access right now. Huge amount of 4-stars, more than even I can do on my own.
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Aug 9, 2013 00:25
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Given how dry Textbroker has been recently I'm hurrying to write up profile blurbs to get that poo poo submitted. Too bad they say 7-10 business days for the star rating. On the plus side, I got 32 on the writing test, with only a couple of actual mistakes (most incorrects were from things I legitimately had never heard of before, like wtf SEO silo method.) Should I fill out as many industry blurbs as possible now, or fill out my best half-dozen or so and the rest later?
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Aug 9, 2013 01:45
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