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An Old Boot posted:EDIT: On the other hand, Casting Words appears to be offering $1/audio minute (for some of their work, anyway). SpeechInk, not so much. kazmeyer posted:That's actually not as low as I remember it for transcription on MTurk -- I think I was seeing numbers in the 25-30 cent range (but all for very short pieces, like 5 minutes or less). In any case, $1/minute isn't a bad rate for starting transcribers these days at all, so it's definitely worth checking out. Yep, that sounds about right. ClariTrans clips are usually 10-15 cents for 20-35 seconds of audio, and they increase the pay in proportion to how difficult the audio is. (Edit: Whoa, new page.)
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Sep 20, 2013 03:37
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PurpleButterfly posted:Turns out I had quite a bit to say about MTurk. I had considered signing up but was a bit put off by the low paying HITs and some really incomprehensible sounding requests, but after your post I'm definitely going to check it out  I applied to Rev last week and received an email today that they want me to start working for them in a few weeks when their work picks up. Made me feel a bit better after getting a "we have no positions for you but are keeping your info" from Appen Butler Hill.
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Sep 20, 2013 04:58
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Here it is.
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kazmeyer posted:That's actually not as low as I remember it for transcription on MTurk -- I think I was seeing numbers in the 25-30 cent range (but all for very short pieces, like 5 minutes or less). In any case, $1/minute isn't a bad rate for starting transcribers these days at all, so it's definitely worth checking out. Softango? If you see anything from Company 1230 it's super easy to do. They accept ANYTHING. I've literally gotten things passed through that made absolutely no sense.
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Sep 20, 2013 06:49
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Maerlyn posted:I had considered signing up but was a bit put off by the low paying HITs and some really incomprehensible sounding requests, but after your post I'm definitely going to check it out Great! Yeah, some of the requests can be weird. Best of luck! For help getting over the learning curve, be sure to visit the communities I mentioned.
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Sep 20, 2013 12:31
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I see Zerys doesn't have a mandatory one-revision request—the client can just reject, even if what they actually wanted wasn't included in the instructions. At least I'm almost to 5 stars (what's that get me?), and I was accepted on WA after hassling them again... at 3 stars, boo.
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Sep 20, 2013 16:25
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thylacine posted:I see Zerys doesn't have a mandatory one-revision request—the client can just reject, even if what they actually wanted wasn't included in the instructions. At least I'm almost to 5 stars (what's that get me?), and I was accepted on WA after hassling them again... at 3 stars, boo. My opinion of WA is improving. I went for like two weeks with absolutely nothing to show for it, but there's gradually more 2- and 3-star stuff showing up, and I'm led to believe it's not actually that hard to move up. While a lot of the stuff offered at this level is ridiculous (hey, pitch an idea and write a full length article for under five bucks and we'd really love it if you include a video as well) there's some quick and easy stuff that shows up occasionally that hopefully we can use to leverage a better rating.
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Sep 20, 2013 17:07
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kazmeyer posted:My opinion of WA is improving. I went for like two weeks with absolutely nothing to show for it, but there's gradually more 2- and 3-star stuff showing up, and I'm led to believe it's not actually that hard to move up. While a lot of the stuff offered at this level is ridiculous (hey, pitch an idea and write a full length article for under five bucks and we'd really love it if you include a video as well) there's some quick and easy stuff that shows up occasionally that hopefully we can use to leverage a better rating. What about all these product descriptions for like 2 cents a word? Does the person not rate them after completion?
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Sep 20, 2013 17:48
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thylacine posted:What about all these product descriptions for like 2 cents a word? Does the person not rate them after completion? That client just batch-accepts everything with "meets expectations" from what I understand; I don't know if that is good enough to move up in ranking or not.
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Sep 20, 2013 18:12
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Yeah that's possibly my one gripe with WA is that it's not really transparent (to a new writer like me at least) what triggers a rise or fall in rating.
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Sep 20, 2013 18:33
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I'm suddenly level 5 for no goddamn reason and it's triggering my internal fear of rejection so now I don't even want to do anything. But to answer the actual question... you get a rise in level based on the following metrics: - How often you communicate with clients. - How many casting calls you win (no negative for losing them). - How many idea orders you get. - How many articles you write. - How often you get an exceeds on your articles. Basically WA is placing a heavy emphasis on people who interact a lot on their site and do a lot of stuff. I'm almost positive I got a level 5 because I started sending clients messages at the end of my work thanking them for the job. Zerys - the rejection thing threw me off at first but actually the rejection rates are quite low as long as you try your best to send a note to the client first asking them to offer you revision opportunities. I've been getting 7 cents/word on Zerys lately which is netting me quite a lot for pretty much nothing, and I'm still only at level 4.25 or something.
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Sep 21, 2013 03:35
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I really, really wish one of my transcription clients would understand that when they ask me if I'm available, my reply of "that depends, what do you have, what's the rate and when's the deadline" does not mean "upload an hour and a half of poo poo-rate video without asking that I'll of course gladly push aside much more lucrative work and handle for you."
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Sep 24, 2013 00:54
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After reading your post I decided to get on a craigslist aggregator and look for more transcription jobs. ".35-.55/min" "$15 per audio hour" Haha. Oh well at least DT is giving me a lot of rush jobs and general work.
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Sep 24, 2013 01:24
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Hurrrr... what are some other ways of saying a car "gets" a certain mpg? I'm tired of writing it because it sounds terrible.
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Sep 24, 2013 21:18
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thylacine posted:Hurrrr... what are some other ways of saying a car "gets" a certain mpg? I'm tired of writing it because it sounds terrible. 'With an astonishing 69 MPG the Jagular SMD ranks...' 'Highway rated at 420 MPG the Hongdu Blazer is...' etc.
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Sep 24, 2013 21:22
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Spartan421 posted:After reading your post I decided to get on a craigslist aggregator and look for more transcription jobs. ".35-.55/min" "$15 per audio hour" Haha. Oh well at least DT is giving me a lot of rush jobs and general work. You should really get into the habit of checking out those aggregators at least every week. If you want to do this for a living, your goal is going to be to get enough clients that you have to seriously juggle to keep them all happy. Once you've got more work available than you can actually handle, you get to triage by pay rate and your life as a freelancer improves significantly.
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Sep 24, 2013 21:22
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The caveat to that is learning to turn down work without burning a client. The last thing you need is to fear turning down work so much you burn yourself out trying to work 18 hours a day to meet all your deadlines. Textbroker announced on their Facebook page that they're about to open Textbroker Poland, if that's relevant to any polish goons out there.
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Sep 24, 2013 23:03
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Yeah. It does get kind of difficult to express "I'm not taking this job because you're not offering me enough money." Most clients understand that you're not exclusive, though, and "I'm already booked" isn't something they can argue with. The problem is that a lot of clients have a work assignment system that's a pain in the balls if you're not trying to solo. When I left DT you had to sign up days in advance for how many hours you wanted, so if I was feeling strapped for cash and signed up for three hours of tape, invariably one of my other clients would offer me something paying twice or three times DT's rate on the same day, and I'd have to turn it down for the crappier work because I'd already committed to it. Another one of my clients has highly variable pay rates ranging from $1.00 to $7.00 a minute for different types of work, but always seems to have trouble with the idea that I'll clear my decks or pull an all-nighter for the $7.00 stuff but not so much for a big $1.00 job. My favorite client? "Hey, I have XX minutes of tape paying YY an hour and due on ZZ, are you available?" Simple, straightforward, sensible.
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Sep 24, 2013 23:21
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I think the problem a lot of us are having with picking up the extra clients is that DT doesn't hassle you about a minimum amount per week. Everyone seems to demand six hours of audio a week or more, and a lot of them are pushing for you to become exclusive, which is nuts! Also, adding into the bad rates pool, the lowest I've ever seen bid for a job was 20 cents an hour from a company in Malaysia, I don't know who got it in the end, I literally was just like this is a race I don't want to get into, thanks Elance for making me hate people.
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Sep 25, 2013 05:19
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If a client tries to make you exclusive or gives you a minimum per week, you tell them to go pound sand and/or look up the difference between an independent contractor and an employee. Most of these firms come pretty close to crossing that line in a lot of places, I think either one of those would probably get them in trouble with the DoL. That is, of course, unless they're willing to pay you a salary and provide benefits to go along with the employee relationship. Being an independent contractor isn't supposed to be like being an employee without job security, it's an inherently mercenary business relationship. They can walk away at any time, without any warning, as long as they send us our last check. We reserve the right to turn down work when it's not lucrative enough and if we want to go to the movies instead of working one day, as long as we haven't already agreed to a deadline, gently caress it we're going to the movies. Simple as.
kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 06:11
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True, thanks Kaz :-) Yeah the amount of potential and former clients I've had this year because they couldn't make that distinction. The funniest was one wher it was a contract doing unemployment insurance hearings, and the client was constantly whining about minimum time for the contract and the like, and how we weren't allowed to define our free hours on the calendar and the like and every time I kept saying to myself, seriously? Do you pay attention to these hearings because I do! Where's my 401K or whatever you American folks do?
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Sep 25, 2013 15:44
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I've been doing bits of transcription for Rev, and that's been working out pretty great. I have found, however, that a 45 minute piece of audio is too much at one time for my hands. So I'm also writing articles at Textbroker again. I lost my 4 star rating after being absent for months (for some reason I don't understand, as my reviews suggest I should still be 4 stars), but whatever. I'll wait around for a new round of reviews. There's currently a blurb at the top of Textbroker's work area that says they're about to change the "look and feel" of the site, and to see a preview of the new style, check out their sister site: textbroker.co.uk. Has this been linked in the thread before? It's not in the OP, and I have seen UK (and other non-US) goons posting here about being interested in Textbroker, but not being in the US. The writer sign up area has a drop down box with about a million countries listed, defaulted to UK. Not sure how it works, or if it's exactly the same as US-based Textbroker, but there it is. Also, I sent the initial application info to Zerys early last week. I still haven't heard from them. The only mention I've seen in this thread about how long they take to respond said about a week. Anyone had it take longer?
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Sep 26, 2013 08:07
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I got into Zerys in about a week. And their star system is very responsive. My very first article bumped up my rating. (Although their reverse-bid pay system is kind of weird. I'm watching some really specific article about having a rehearsal dinner at some club in Amarillo creep slowly up the scale.) kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 18:18
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I applied to Zerys about a week ago and after not hearing anything tried to log in this morning, only to have it tell me thanks for the application, but they do not require my services at this time. Bummer. Wonder why that could be. There's no way I bombed the samples and all that badly, based on my ratings and experience with other sites. Oh well, now to wait for my Writer Access profile review to finish.
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Sep 26, 2013 19:05
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Textbroker UK I think was one of the original versions? I vaguely recall reading about it before they opened the US branch. I also vaguely recall that it's not listed is that it's generally closed to new applicants. If that's not the case though, I can easily make a note of it. I saw that assignment too Kaz, I was excited to check out something with a ridiculous high pay rate, only to find it's like 75 words. I have no idea how their system actually works so I didn't know it was rising.
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Sep 26, 2013 19:17
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The way Zerys works is that the client puts the title up for some low pay rate (It can start at 0.7c/word) and if nobody takes it for a certain period, it moves up to 1.4, 2.1, 2.8, 3.2 and so on. The highest category is 14c/word, and the client sets how long it stays at each plateau. Generally speaking though once stuff gets above 3 cents it seems to disappear pretty quick.warheadr posted:I applied to Zerys about a week ago and after not hearing anything tried to log in this morning, only to have it tell me thanks for the application, but they do not require my services at this time. Bummer. Wonder why that could be. There's no way I bombed the samples and all that badly, based on my ratings and experience with other sites. Oh well, now to wait for my Writer Access profile review to finish. It can be subjective. Writer Access lowballed me compared to my ratings on other sites, either I fumbled something in the sample/test/application or I just drew an examiner who didn't like my style. Fortunately there's other gigs so you can always try again elsewhere.
kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 19:24
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Huh. I never even received login information from Zerys. The sign up page says "Note: once you submit this initial application, you will receive an email with your Username and Password to your Writer account." I never got an email. I thought "hell, maybe I typoed the email address," and tried to sign up again, but it says my email address is already in the system. Bummer. I've been a little afraid of Writer Access because of the note in the OP about definitely knowing the AP stylebook. My favorite articles to write at Textbroker are blog-post-style crap about dumb subjects. If I could write blog posts about different subjects all day, I'd be glad to do it.
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Sep 27, 2013 09:54
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Textbroker is huge on AP style as well. It's all about the commas. If you're fine at TB you'll be fine at WA. My dirty little secret is that I've literally never opened, owned, touched or seen an actual AP style book. Going through school as a creative writer it was all about MLA and creative stylistic choices. It took me a little while to adapt to the AP rules that most people care about, but it wasn't all that hard.
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Sep 27, 2013 20:26
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Nighthand posted:Textbroker is huge on AP style as well. It's all about the commas. If you're fine at TB you'll be fine at WA. That's pretty encouraging. I've never looked at an AP style book either. I just started using what I felt like were excessive commas, and Textbroker was like "good job." Maybe I'll check out Writer Access sometime next week.
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Sep 28, 2013 21:36
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Finally have my first file from DT that involves 6+ speakers with a recorder on a table and they are all females that sound the same.
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Sep 30, 2013 03:24
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That happened once. I just started assigning random names when a speaker spoke and no one said anything.
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Sep 30, 2013 04:27
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Spartan421 posted:That happened once. I just started assigning random names when a speaker spoke and no one said anything. Yeah the guests supposedly are all anonymous too, so not really worrying.
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Sep 30, 2013 04:30
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Have you folks tried, or are you able, or is there a way, to do some kind of audio editing to make things clearer? I'm sure it's much easier to decline a tape than to try to learn audio remastering to cut out background noise or fuzz or something, but I just wonder if that'd be feasible for someone who knows what they're doing.
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Sep 30, 2013 06:14
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Nighthand posted:Have you folks tried, or are you able, or is there a way, to do some kind of audio editing to make things clearer? I'm sure it's much easier to decline a tape than to try to learn audio remastering to cut out background noise or fuzz or something, but I just wonder if that'd be feasible for someone who knows what they're doing. I used Audacity (which is FREE!) to clean up sound for a transcriber in the past. One speaker was loud, the other very quiet. It ain't hard. Learn the skills in an hour or two, experiment for one more hour and enjoy good sound forever. Things you can do: - Clean up pops. - Reduce volume differences between speakers. - Reduce background white noise. Probably an expert can do more, but this is the basic kind of thing you'd need. EDIT: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
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Sep 30, 2013 06:21
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Nighthand posted:Have you folks tried, or are you able, or is there a way, to do some kind of audio editing to make things clearer? I'm sure it's much easier to decline a tape than to try to learn audio remastering to cut out background noise or fuzz or something, but I just wonder if that'd be feasible for someone who knows what they're doing. To be a little more specific than No Gravitas, you don't need to learn to "remaster" to remove background noise. With Audacity you highlight a short segment of just background noise, run the noise removal tool, press the "get noise profile" button, select the whole audio track, run the tool again and remove noise. It takes very little time at all.
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Sep 30, 2013 07:41
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Internet Friend posted:To be a little more specific than No Gravitas, you don't need to learn to "remaster" to remove background noise. With Audacity you highlight a short segment of just background noise, run the noise removal tool, press the "get noise profile" button, select the whole audio track, run the tool again and remove noise. It takes very little time at all. The main problem I've run into is that some of the voices you hear are so blurred out by the background noise in the first place that removing it doesn't do much good (as in, it removes the voice entirely). At that point, though, it's on the client's head for providing lovely audio. I really wish DT would have more of a dialogue with clients who are repeat offenders when it comes to crappy quality. I'm in a position right now where I can't turn down many jobs from them, and certain names that pop up on the assignment list automatically make me want to chew my fingers off. It seems like they would want to advise these people on ways to get cleaner transcripts, and maybe they do and the clients are just too dumb to listen, but still. Old Boot fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 22:11
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For those getting those lovely recorder-on-the-table files from DT with a ton of speakers, always ask if they want the voices "tracked". Sometimes, especially for anonymous focus groups, etc, just using MALE and FEMALE (no numbers) regardless of how many speakers is just fine with them and with the client. That doesn't help much if you can barely hear them, but it does make those files less cringeworthy when you don't have to identify multiple similar voices.
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Oct 1, 2013 03:38
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I have had some real poo poo ones, and I'll just tell you exactly what I do, I listen through, make sure they're aware of the situation, because boss lady can't always listen to everything, and sometimes she just doesn't know the middle portion of a file is pure poo poo. So as long as she knows she can inform the client. Do your best and crack on but make ure they're informed of the situation. I always get told except for some minor stuff, you are not being paid to be a sound engineer. But look there is hope, it's almost university research season, and there's nothing nicer than really anal research assistants, because they're usually very good about making sure they have everything being recorded properly.
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Oct 1, 2013 17:59
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Slightly Used Cake posted:I have had some real poo poo ones, and I'll just tell you exactly what I do, I listen through, make sure they're aware of the situation, because boss lady can't always listen to everything, and sometimes she just doesn't know the middle portion of a file is pure poo poo. So as long as she knows she can inform the client. Do your best and crack on but make ure they're informed of the situation. I always get told except for some minor stuff, you are not being paid to be a sound engineer. But look there is hope, it's almost university research season, and there's nothing nicer than really anal research assistants, because they're usually very good about making sure they have everything being recorded properly. Save one client that I honestly cannot loving stand, even if the work they're doing is really commendable. But yeah, those 'middle of the table' ones are the ones where I feel like I want to tell these people, look, I get the importance of the discussion you're having, the least you can do is shell out for audio equipment that isn't running on two parts luck, three parts dog poo poo, and maybe a couple prayers thrown in for good measure. It's like listening to people talk through wads of cheesecloth.
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Oct 1, 2013 23:34
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Really curious if we both hate the same client now, cause there is one that I want to decline immediately whenever it shows up in my email.
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Oct 2, 2013 00:33
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Crunch Bucket posted:Really curious if we both hate the same client now, cause there is one that I want to decline immediately whenever it shows up in my email. I wouldn't be surprised. If you were on the roster for the latest batch over the last couple days, then the answer's yes.
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Oct 2, 2013 00:45
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