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kazmeyer posted:One of my clients is like 90% ABS, and the pay is always good. I'm actually working ABS porn right now, which is pretty hilarious. You know it's funny, but I was wondering about this the other day...and yes agreed, some ABS files are NOT worth it. But some of them are awesome. I loved the comedy central ones we had a couple months back, there were some great acts in that bunch...but now alas, reality TV shooting season begins again, let's all say a silent prayer...because if DT picks up Honey Boo Boo Child I may implode.
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Oct 26, 2013 04:04
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SEO writing is mentally draining. I've been working at Writers Domain, as the pay is pretty decent for what they are asking (SEO content that is like a blog style stream of consciousness that pays $3.30 for 200 words with good grammar/spelling), but I just don't know how many times I can write about the same topics. They only let you do 500 articles a month, which comes out to $1,650 if I pace myself at 17 a day and taking me about an average a little over 2 hours a day. If I really push myself I've gotten it can get them done in about 1 1/2 hours though. I've been trying to do it every day for a month since it's such easy money. Might have to dial it back next month to preserve my sanity. I don't know how you guys can do this every day as a full time gig. I think I'd go crazy...
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Oct 26, 2013 05:28
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Astro7x posted:I don't know how you guys can do this every day as a full time gig. I think I'd go crazy... It's a lot easier to avoid burnout when you've got a nice variety of gigs. I write, I transcribe, I do search engine stuff. If one of them's driving me nuts, I can focus on the other two to make up the difference. I just recently went through a drought where I barely did any transcription at all, but now my main writing gig is pissing me off so I'm back in the reality show mines. In any case, most of us don't do that kind of volume writing. Until recently, I wrote exclusively for one or two sites that paid $20+ for 400 words, and I'd do probably an average of one or two a day in conjunction with my other gigs. I've only recently started diversifying again with places like WriterAccess/Zerys to pick up some of the easy cheapo work to help supplement. If I suddenly decided I was going to write 3400 words a day, though, I'd be publishing books, not grinding for content mills. (And I don't think DT will get Honey Boo Boo. One of my former clients used to handle Toddlers and Tiaras and other stuff on the network, so if anybody's got that show she does.)
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Oct 26, 2013 06:21
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Mister Sinewave posted:Ah, got it. Thanks! My husband is also severely hearing impaired - he got a cochlear implant 3 years before I met him (so 16 years ago now, drat) So I've also wondered what kind of effect, if any, that transcriptions have on captions. 
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Oct 26, 2013 12:45
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kazmeyer posted:It's a lot easier to avoid burnout when you've got a nice variety of gigs. I write, I transcribe, I do search engine stuff. If one of them's driving me nuts, I can focus on the other two to make up the difference. I just recently went through a drought where I barely did any transcription at all, but now my main writing gig is pissing me off so I'm back in the reality show mines. I do a lot of other things too, writing just pays the best so I've been focusing on that first. At $28/hr it's actually paying better than my real job. I have a full time job, so this is all just additional income for me. $20 for 400 words is all relevant to the quality of the work they want though. If I had to write a well researched article, that could take me an hour easily. If I am writing content mill SEO garbage I can make the same amount in 30-45 minutes it seems. Isn't $3.30/200 words high for SEO blog style content? I seem to keep discovering better paying gigs as I go.
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Oct 26, 2013 15:20
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Astro7x posted:I do a lot of other things too, writing just pays the best so I've been focusing on that first. At $28/hr it's actually paying better than my real job. I have a full time job, so this is all just additional income for me. They're really not that time consuming (save Demand Studios and their dipshit CE brigade; I just got a reject because the copy editor thinks "allowed" and "required" are synonyms), but it's more about the creative energy. 3,400 words a day is a LOT of output. If I can make approximately the same amount with 800 words, that's a lot more appealing to me just in terms of effort, even if I have to actually make sure the odd fact I cite is correct. What kind of articles are we talking about for this rate, anyway?
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Oct 27, 2013 03:01
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kazmeyer posted:What kind of articles are we talking about for this rate, anyway? It's literally a stream of consciousness about a topic that requires zero research. http://idea-tank.net/2013/08/26/how-to-choose-a-locksmith-in-gig-harbor-wa/ The most feed back I ever received are that I accidentally spelled a word wrong because I didn't proof read well enough, and even so am not required to go back and fix it myself. Astro7x fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Oct 27, 2013 |
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Oct 27, 2013 19:06
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Crunch Bucket posted:My husband is also severely hearing impaired - he got a cochlear implant 3 years before I met him (so 16 years ago now, drat) Transcriptions help speed up the process for a caption editor to get a show's caption file done. If a caption editor has a transcript for an hour-long program, it'll only take 3 or 4 hours to time, break, and review the caption file as opposed to 8 hours usually to create the caption file from scratch. Depending on the pay rate of the transcription and the caption editor's wage, it can also be slightly cheaper to work with a transcript that was outsourced to freelancers.
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Oct 27, 2013 19:17
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Astro7x posted:It's literally a stream of consciousness about a topic that requires zero research. Jesus Christ, you're right. That's basically monkey-bang-on-keyboard. I might have to look at this as a sideline after all. I see what you mean, though -- that kind of work would drive me bugshit if it was all I did. Diversifying a bit should keep you in the game. kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Oct 27, 2013 |
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Oct 27, 2013 21:50
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Someone else in here mentioned that they started transcribing porn. I started an ongoing porn transcription gig a couple of weeks ago and it's pretty hilarious but Jesus it's somehow so incredibly dull. Right now I'm working on a BDSM orgy starring five guys, and all of them feel the need to say variations on "oh gently caress yes" constantly and at the same time as one another. All of these are 90 minutes long and thankfully they go relatively quick because of the minimal dialogue, but I hadn't anticipated how mind-numbing it would be to sit here and make note of every time someone says "oh yes." 
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Nov 2, 2013 03:15
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Budget Bears posted:Someone else in here mentioned that they started transcribing porn. I started an ongoing porn transcription gig a couple of weeks ago and it's pretty hilarious but Jesus it's somehow so incredibly dull. Right now I'm working on a BDSM orgy starring five guys, and all of them feel the need to say variations on "oh gently caress yes" constantly and at the same time as one another. All of these are 90 minutes long and thankfully they go relatively quick because of the minimal dialogue, but I hadn't anticipated how mind-numbing it would be to sit here and make note of every time someone says "oh yes." What's the company? I have to check this out.
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Nov 2, 2013 03:26
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why would anybody need porn transcribed?
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Nov 2, 2013 04:14
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Astro7x posted:why would anybody need porn transcribed? That's exactly what I said! These are feature-length, already-edited films and I have a character limit per line so I'm fairly certain it's for closed captioning. But even still, what?!
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Nov 2, 2013 04:37
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Astro7x posted:why would anybody need porn transcribed? Deaf people need captions? Man: Oh. Yes. Hot. Yeah, baby. Give it to me. Yes. Yes. Yes. Woman: Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Or maybe as basis for translations for people who don't speak the language? Homme: Oh. Oui. Chaud. Oui, bebe. Donnez il a moi. Oui. Oui. Oui. Femme: Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. On topic: Has anyone ever gotten hired by VirtualBee? I have been sitting at 100% for months and still no dice.
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Nov 2, 2013 04:42
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Astro7x posted:why would anybody need porn transcribed? Well, the one I've been working on is actually a reality show, and thankfully I don't have to transcribe the grunts. Just stuff like "Mike goes down on Carol" or "Carol pegs Mike". This one's not so bad, it's a show where couples work with a porn studio to create a professional sex tape. The last show I did put three guys in a mansion with two strippers with the objective of nailing one (or both) of them. Oh my loving lord that was terrible.
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Nov 2, 2013 06:41
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edited for too identifying carry on Old Boot fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Nov 2, 2013 |
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Nov 2, 2013 08:14
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I have some questions for those of you writing for Textbroker, Zerys and the like. I applied yesterday and got a rejection email this morning. Did I bomb the application or are they just not always hiring new writers? I've been doing a lot of writing for Textbroker lately and I've been getting some decent ratings. I assumed that Zerys had similar expectations, so I was a little surprised by the rejection. Also, how long do I have to wait to reapply? Can't seem to find any info about that!
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Nov 3, 2013 19:40
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misunderestimated posted:I have some questions for those of you writing for Textbroker, Zerys and the like. I applied yesterday and got a rejection email this morning. Did I bomb the application or are they just not always hiring new writers? I've been doing a lot of writing for Textbroker lately and I've been getting some decent ratings. I assumed that Zerys had similar expectations, so I was a little surprised by the rejection. I'd like further info on this as well. I never got any kind of conformation or denial from Zerys, personally. I contacted them about it, but got no reply. I wondered if I'd typoed my email address, but it says that address is already in their system. I never received a password, and I can't login. I don't get it. I was excited about that one, too. Also, while I'm here, thank you Astro7x for mentioning Writers Domain. I thrive on mind-numbing tedium. Applied just now.  edited for question: How long were you on the "waiting list" at Writers Domain, Astro7x? Sara T. Biggun fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Nov 4, 2013 |
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Nov 4, 2013 20:10
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Is it just me or is the Writer's Domain grammar test brutal? Half the questions are a joke, but the other half are incredibly obscure and would probably never come up in the content they provide.
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Nov 4, 2013 20:34
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I aced it. There were a couple that seemed odd, though.
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Nov 4, 2013 21:58
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Is this the appropriate place to ask how to go about opening up/running an individual Amazon store? I recently went through my huge DVD collection and I have a lot of box sets that I'd like to sell (plus some RPG guidebooks I can make money on). I've tried searching for guides online, but all the ones I can find are about becoming a Professional Amazon seller, which I definitely don't want to do. I'd appreciate hearing what other goons have done, how they run their store, keep customers happy, don't get screwed over scam-wise, what I should/shouldn't do, etc.
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Nov 6, 2013 04:09
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misunderestimated posted:I have some questions for those of you writing for Textbroker, Zerys and the like. I applied yesterday and got a rejection email this morning. Did I bomb the application or are they just not always hiring new writers? I've been doing a lot of writing for Textbroker lately and I've been getting some decent ratings. I assumed that Zerys had similar expectations, so I was a little surprised by the rejection. Science posted:Is it just me or is the Writer's Domain grammar test brutal? Half the questions are a joke, but the other half are incredibly obscure and would probably never come up in the content they provide. Skutter posted:Is this the appropriate place to ask how to go about opening up/running an individual Amazon store? I recently went through my huge DVD collection and I have a lot of box sets that I'd like to sell (plus some RPG guidebooks I can make money on). I've tried searching for guides online, but all the ones I can find are about becoming a Professional Amazon seller, which I definitely don't want to do. I'd appreciate hearing what other goons have done, how they run their store, keep customers happy, don't get screwed over scam-wise, what I should/shouldn't do, etc.
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Nov 6, 2013 04:34
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Skutter posted:Is this the appropriate place to ask how to go about opening up/running an individual Amazon store? I recently went through my huge DVD collection and I have a lot of box sets that I'd like to sell (plus some RPG guidebooks I can make money on). I've tried searching for guides online, but all the ones I can find are about becoming a Professional Amazon seller, which I definitely don't want to do. I'd appreciate hearing what other goons have done, how they run their store, keep customers happy, don't get screwed over scam-wise, what I should/shouldn't do, etc. I've sold a bunch of used DVDs, books and CDs on Amazon, though it's more of a side hobby thing for me than something I do professionally. If I can be of any help please let me know.
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Nov 6, 2013 04:55
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I've routinely sold a bunch of my poo poo on Amazon (I move a lot though so it's an occasional "poo poo I need to sell 200 books" thing for me, not a professional thing). Honestly, it's pretty much like buying from Amazon only you're selling. They run the credit cards and then shoot you an email telling you who to send poo poo to and what to send them. There's not really a lot to do other than listing your stuff and picking a price then waiting for the emails to come in. I forget what the payment schedule is like but it's not like EBay where you can get hustled really easy. Everything goes through Amazon proper. Downside is it's pretty price conscious but if your stuff is in good shape and close to the lowest price for that condition, you'll clean house pretty quick. Unless it's really mass market, mainstream stuff selling for a penny, then mayyybe you'll make a few cents with the shipping allowance but you'd do better donating it to Goodwill and taking the tax deduction or posting it on your local Craigslist.
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Nov 6, 2013 05:41
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Amazon's really easy for the most part. I'm technically a professional seller, although I stick to books and not DVDs. Aside from picking a good price, make sure that you write a good description. People sometimes don't like to buy from the megasellers who don't bother to write an individual one, so if you do a detailed listing you'll have a leg up on them. Sometimes you can get a higher price just because they trust you more. If you can get to the post office fairly often (same day or next day), then make sure to offer expedited shipping as an option too. It's a good way to stand out. Customer happiness is pretty easy. Most people won't even talk to you or leave feedback. Just wrap things up well before you ship them, ship quickly and call out any defects in your listing and you should be fine. Scammers aren't a huge problem. They're pretty rare. If you get unlucky, just be friendly, helpful and firm and most back down. Damaged item? Apologize and ask for a picture for the insurance claim, or insist on a return before you refund. Claim they never received it, even though the tracking number shows that they did? Apologize and ask that they help you file a report with the Postal Inspectors on this horrible theft. Most of the time it miraculously shows up. And, again, not to tempt fate but unless you're selling clothing or modern electronics, fraud is a fairly low risk. Also be sure to actually listen to see if they might be telling the truth. Sometimes stuff really does get broken in weird ways in the mail, and you don't want to be a dick to someone who thinks you're trying to scam them. Shipping is probably going to be your biggest pain. First, be really careful when listing, since Amazon's shipping allowance isn't going to be enough to cover your cost most of the time. They just use a flat number. When you go to confirm your listing, it will tell you how much money you'll actually receive after Amazon takes out its fees. That includes a commission and a $1 listing fee (you only pay on things that sell). Always subtract your expected shipping cost from your expected after fees payout, or you might accidentally lose money on a sale. Amazon actually has a pretty nice system in place for buying shipping labels through them. You get a discount, really cheap insurance (if you want to save money with Media Mail or First Class Shipping, insurance is free on Priority now) and they automatically pass along the tracking number. But you need your own scale if you're going to do that. I don't know if you have enough to make it worthwhile.
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Nov 6, 2013 06:52
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Nighthand posted:Any tips for those of us who haven't taken it yet? I'm probably going to apply there this month. I.e. does it have an emphasis on commas like some of these other places, or is more varied? You have 2 attempts (the exam changes with each attempt) so don't feel crushed if you get an absurdly hard version the first time around. You have 10 minutes per attempt so make it count. Verify every question you're not 100% on. As far as I can tell there's two lists of questions from which the exam pulls question: the super easy grade school list and the Oxford professor list. The questions are either a joke ("which would you use in this sentence: your or you're?") or pretty ambiguous/hard ("Which of these 4 virtually identical sentences sounds more professional?"). Make sure you're up to speed on punctuation with quotes. Their "guide", a 2 minute video, is worthless. I scored a 7/10 (fail) the first time around, and a 9/10 the second time around. Cut off was 80%.
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Nov 7, 2013 01:53
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Science posted:You have 2 attempts (the exam changes with each attempt) so don't feel crushed if you get an absurdly hard version the first time around. You have 10 minutes per attempt so make it count. Verify every question you're not 100% on. I did it last week and the cutoff was 85%, I got an 80 and then a 90 on the second attempt. The comma questions, quote punctuation, and identical sentences were tricky, and there will probably be an "it's" question in there too. Any idea how long the Writer's Domain waiting list is? And if you get in, is it pretty much as much work as you want (within the monthly limit) or are you fighting for keywords with all the other writers?
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Nov 7, 2013 02:39
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Isn't about time for Kilo India to tell us how many tens of thousands of dollars he/she made this month writing? I'm interested in how the buy content and sell it for more on Constant Content worked out.
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Nov 7, 2013 03:15
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Just submitted my applications for Writers' Access and Zerys, hopefully those sites will be more fruitful than Textbroker. 
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Nov 7, 2013 03:34
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Zerys is pretty bad unless you like churning out stuff for 1c a word. Writer Access is terrible if you don't manage to get four stars out of the gate. I got into WA in mid-September and I think I just did my tenth assignment about a week ago, and I think I've written less than five on Zerys.
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Nov 7, 2013 03:38
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kazmeyer posted:Zerys is pretty bad unless you like churning out stuff for 1c a word. Writer Access is terrible if you don't manage to get four stars out of the gate. I got into WA in mid-September and I think I just did my tenth assignment about a week ago, and I think I've written less than five on Zerys. I did a 3.5 cent/word zerys article today, it wasn't too bad. They're somewhat rare though. Even at level 4, Writer Access has been slim this month. Last month had $13 350 word company profiles that I absolutely rolled in, which was awesome. Aside from that though, the majority of the work seems to be in love lists and direct orders. thylacine posted:Isn't about time for Kilo India to tell us how many tens of thousands of dollars he/she made this month writing? She has a bit of a cult following on Writer Access, amusingly enough. There are two threads on the forum asking about her, since she usually posts all the time, but a couple of weeks ago posted something about having a really bad week and hasn't really posted since. As for the Constant Content thing, here, I'll cross-post her posts from WA: KI on WA posted:In case anyone's wondering, my Constant-Content foray went like this. I uploaded about 40 articles and I sold about 20% within the first three weeks which worked out to about $8 per article upload. Hardly "write home and talk about it" money, and significantly less than the platform used to sustain. Prior to this, I would sell about 50% immediately with 10-20% selling over the next few months. This isn't me alone: other people have noticed it too. KI on WA posted:Okay so I figured I'd update again since it's been a whole month. I figure I might be helping someone, somewhere...
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Nov 7, 2013 03:55
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Zerys is working fine for me this week, hopefully I can get to 4.5 stars and get 5 star work. I'm at 4.25 or so now. I've been doing $12 350 word HVAC articles—which they give you all the research for and a lot of them are the same. They really like bulleted lists and tying the article in geographically. And, I've also been turning car company web pages into reviews(easy) or comparisons(a little harder since you have to dig through the car sites to find the right models to compare and look at long lists of features.) 600 words for $21. I guess I was lucky in that my first article bumped me from a 3 to a 4—but in general, follow the directions and hit the max word count and no one minds the amount of em dashes I use (protip: alt-0151, double hyphens make me mad.) I was a little pissed when I wrote a "write about anything related to this keyword article" and wrote about DIY screen printing—the client said "this is good writing, but it's a screen printing business. They don't want people to do it themselves." Thanks, you could've told me that before my pretend $13 disappeared. The little apartment blogs are easy too, they don't pay well but the client gives out 5 stars often—which is worth more than the pay. I'm level 3 at WA, and it sucks. I've done 3 articles, one (from the client that encourages fluffy language) was rated Exceeds expectations. Unfortunately I didn't get in on the porno casting calls and moving up in their star ratings is a mystery. And Textbroker. I've yet to get on any teams that actually have work, and I can't motivate myself to do the terrible open order pool orders. Let's take a look. The newest teams are: technical medical articles for 1.56 cents a word and technical legal writing for 2.10 cents a word. What. The. gently caress. If I had the tenacity of Kilo India, I'd be making tolerable (but not real) money.
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Nov 7, 2013 06:29
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thylacine posted:Zerys is working fine for me this week, hopefully I can get to 4.5 stars and get 5 star work. I'm at 4.25 or so now. I've been doing $12 350 word HVAC articles—which they give you all the research for and a lot of them are the same. They really like bulleted lists and tying the article in geographically. Yeah, I get a really bad vibe from the Open Order pool and Teams on Textbroker, hence why I'm trying to use Writers Access and Zerys now. Textbroker feels really inaccessible and hard to get into, especially at the 3-star level. It just seems impossible to increase in rank in any meaningful way once you're ranked at 3 stars, Writers Access seems a lot more lenient and accessible by comparison (eg increase rank by being more involved on the website and communicating often with clients). I know there's a list in the OP, but are there other sites you all would recommend pursuing next? Also, how long does it typically take for WA to get back to new applicants after they submitted their application and writing sample? I did mine as a "romance copy" product description for a Star Wars tea infuser and that was actually pretty fun. Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Nov 7, 2013 |
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Nov 7, 2013 16:59
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For people wondering about the Writer's Domain wait list, all I can say is I've been on it since July 31. I even emailed to ask, in so many words, if they'd forgotten about me. They said, also in so many words, "just hang in there, dude." I guess this is normal.
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Nov 8, 2013 00:43
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TheRamblingSoul posted:Yeah, I get a really bad vibe from the Open Order pool and Teams on Textbroker, hence why I'm trying to use Writers Access and Zerys now. Textbroker feels really inaccessible and hard to get into, especially at the 3-star level. It just seems impossible to increase in rank in any meaningful way once you're ranked at 3 stars, Writers Access seems a lot more lenient and accessible by comparison (eg increase rank by being more involved on the website and communicating often with clients). I know there's a list in the OP, but are there other sites you all would recommend pursuing next? Took me like a month to get approved on WA. I guess I need to get past the need to send superfluous emails to clients if I want to get ahead on WA. Kind of funny my first client on Zerys sent me a page of raves and criticism, but I never replied to him because gently caress you .7 cents a word—I'm not gonna be your friend for that.
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Nov 8, 2013 00:48
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Von Sloneker posted:For people wondering about the Writer's Domain wait list, all I can say is I've been on it since July 31. I even emailed to ask, in so many words, if they'd forgotten about me. They said, also in so many words, "just hang in there, dude." I guess this is normal. I e-mailed them for a ball park, and they told me the wait is around 6 months right now.
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Nov 8, 2013 01:31
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Thank you goons for the tips about Amazon! I am definitely going to go through with opening up a store, I just need to find the time to sit down and start listing my stuff. I really appreciate it. I may be PMing some of you in the future for more tips. Thanks again!
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Nov 8, 2013 01:51
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If you have a smartphone, I'd check and see if there's a scouter-type app that'd let you scan barcodes and then do the listing automagically. Something along the lines of RedLaser.
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Nov 8, 2013 05:41
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Is there another thread for publishing/selling erotica online? The second thread linked in the OP is closed.
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Nov 8, 2013 15:50
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TheRamblingSoul posted:Is there another thread for publishing/selling erotica online? The second thread linked in the OP is closed. I think those discussions were chased over to goonreads.com.
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Nov 8, 2013 16:45
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