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kazmeyer posted:It's not a bad idea to nip that kind of thing in the bud, because if they use uneven standards as an excuse to drop people, you want to get dropped before you come to rely on that source of income. There have been one or two clients I passed on after passing the test once I realized that they'd probably be too much of a pain in the nuts to work with. This is kind of what I was thinking. It's not so much a matter of I didn't know what I was doing - I studied their guidelines profusely and spent more time than I should have combing over the transcription, making sure everything was right. It's a matter of their guidelines applied in some places and not others. I wasn't sure how I could work in that environment, but I was willing to do so if possible. Job situation isn't doing so hot. I guess it is for the best. Thanks for your comments.
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Feb 8, 2014 19:04
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So I applied to Textbroker, Writer Access, and Constant-Content over the past few days. How long do they typically take to respond to the application?
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Feb 9, 2014 03:48
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Got into textbroker and writeraccess within 2 days of applying.
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Feb 9, 2014 04:26
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One of my SEO articles was reviewed at Writers Domain, the reviewer said that they are transitioning way from anecdotes next month so I should change up my writing style. Are a lot of other sites doing that too? Assuming this all has to do with Google, but I thought Hummingbird favored more casual blog style stuff.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:51
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Hummingbird doesn't necessarily favor a more casual style, just less rigid keywords. I don't often see assignments wanting informal writing, a lot of it is 2nd person business casual or third person dry and professional.
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Feb 10, 2014 23:55
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I've got these things coming in the mail from Amazon: Plantronics S12 Corded Telephone Headset System Panasonic KX-TS500B Integrated Corded Phone Syste Anything else I really need besides contacting a local phone company to set up a basic landline for LiveOps? I also ordered a copy of Writer's Market 2014 Deluxe, any advice for utilizing that for publishing/contest opportunities?
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Feb 13, 2014 17:56
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My wife applied to Focus Forward and Daily Transcription (whatever the two called out in the op were) and a few others over a week ago. Do the applications take super long to process or does she suck at transcription?
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Feb 16, 2014 13:27
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They only go through applications when they need more workers. If they're flush right now, it could take a while.
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Feb 16, 2014 16:49
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I know I was told before Christmas they needed more bodies at DT, but there's really not been a butt-load of work recently, and there's been another influx of new talent from what I can see.
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Feb 17, 2014 17:10
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Nitrousoxide posted:So I applied to Textbroker, Writer Access, and Constant-Content over the past few days. How long do they typically take to respond to the application? I applied to Textbroker around 2 p.m. today and they just accepted me 3 hours later. Got accepted at a level 4. Pretty excited about that. I write for a living, though, so that probably helped.
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Feb 17, 2014 22:58
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Can I just say Thank. loving. God. That orders are coming back to WA and TB? Because I've been using these two sites to bust me out of trouble when my funds get low and it was getting pretty dicey there at the end. Super excited about WA because there seems to be 15 pages of level 2 jobs, and I can write 500 words with my eyes closed. Every penny counts right? If I stopped getting drunk at
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Feb 18, 2014 11:26
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Turtlicious posted:Can I just say Thank. loving. God. That orders are coming back to WA and TB? Because I've been using these two sites to bust me out of trouble when my funds get low and it was getting pretty dicey there at the end. Super excited about WA because there seems to be 15 pages of level 2 jobs, and I can write 500 words with my eyes closed. Every penny counts right? How has your experience on WA and TB been so far at Levels 2 and 3? I keep getting these weird mental hang-ups and anxiety about submitting articles for topics I don't know much about (like New York real estate markets, etc). I appreciate the insight.
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Feb 18, 2014 15:08
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At Textbroker, I would never write anything beneath my highest star level. I've heard horror stories of the editors rating you based on the level of the assignment -- giving 4 star writers 3 stars on a 3 star assignment executed flawlessly -- and that's a quick way to get your rating dropped. I'm incredibly paranoid about TB because most of my income comes from them, and a drop in star level means back to retail for me. At Writer Access it's a lot more fluid. I've written 2 and 3 star assignments with no issues, as a 4-star writer. Raising your star level from 4 to 5 seems to be all about client communication, sending thank yous and responding promptly and never missing a deadline, etc etc. My experience is limited with them, though. When I registered and got in, there was a client dropping thousands of company descriptions that, once I got the hang of, I was able to pump out incredibly quickly. Since that client finished their orders and left, I haven't done more than two or three assignments a month, between lack of available titles and my failure to earn casting calls. Speaking of Writer Access, there's been some drama with new writers and some lack of transparency on their part. A couple of new staff members have been doing things like making stealth edits to content without writer feedback, and in a couple of cases, have added incorrect grammar or typos to the piece. The client then sees this as coming from the writer and it reflects poorly on everyone involved. It hasn't been disastrous yet for anyone, but it's worrying. There's also the casting calls issue; apparently, when a casting call is posted, it gathers writers, and then the WA staff make suggestions for the client as to which writers they should pick. It leads to things like me, with an Elite status in Gaming, being declined for game reviews repeatedly. Another issue I've heard is that there's a bit of preference shown to new writers. Orders, when posted, show up earlier for new writers, presumably to give them a chance to claim something before the old established heavyweights snap up a bunch. Some of the newest batch of writers, as Internet-stalked by our little elite clique on Facebook, have some pretty depressingly bad profiles (typos, grammar errors, poor references) and yet still are given Elite badges and set up at 4 stars. There's been some grumbling about devaluing older writers with all of this, etc. Take all of this with a grain of salt, it's mostly second- and third-hand, I haven't personally experienced any of the issues other than being declined without comment for casting calls.
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Feb 18, 2014 16:55
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I Am Hydrogen posted:I applied to Textbroker around 2 p.m. today and they just accepted me 3 hours later. Yeah, I ended up getting in the next day after I posted that. I wrote my first five articles, earned about 20 dollars, and now I'm just sitting around waiting for them to unlock my account again. I really wish I could have kept writing, I could have made several hundred dollars by now. Anyone know how long it takes after the first 5 articles to be able to write again?
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Feb 18, 2014 18:11
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Nitrousoxide posted:Yeah, I ended up getting in the next day after I posted that. It took me about two weeks, but I've heard some people say it'll take as long as a month. When I was a 4 star article writer for TB I wrote a few level 2 and 3 articles, so even though they had no edits, they still knocked me down to level 2. Now I'm not sure how to climb out of that hole with TB, and I'm having to write for .012 cents on the word. It's kind of ridiculous but poo poo. I've got to pay my rent. I've found at level 2 they will sometimes give you a rank of 3 if you write really well, and sometimes you get a 4 when you're writing 3s. Once you hit 2 it's a horrible slog to climb back to the top, and it can happen really easily with TB because they just use the last 5 articles. It's really de-motivating and is a terrible system. The editor's can be cruel, and honestly it sometimes feel like they keep good writer's in the lower levels so their is less competition for the higher ranking articles. Just don't write like poo poo, and only take 4s and 5s depending on your writing skill. Writer's Access I've just started with but when I joined they gave me a 2 (I did horrible on the grammar test,) and then there weren't any jobs so I've been having to live off of TB. I was only making about $980 A month, and December / January were so lean that I had to dip into my savings to make due. It always gets really lean around that time though, and the market is starting to get over-saturated with writers. You have a high level though, so you'll be fine.
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Feb 18, 2014 18:54
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Turtlicious posted:It took me about two weeks, but I've heard some people say it'll take as long as a month. If this post is anything to go by then I think those editor's [sic] have every right to be cruel.  Seriously? "Make due"?
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Feb 18, 2014 19:02
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I was accepted to TB in about a day. The topics for their writing samples were tricky enough for me that I only get to start out as a 3, but it looks like there's at least a little work at that level to fill up the slow times at my day job. I think I did much better on my WA sample (so much so that I'm using it as a writing sample on my Textbroker profile) but they're taking a lot longer with it.
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Feb 18, 2014 19:22
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Quote is not edit
Turtlicious fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Feb 18, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 19:23
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:If this post is anything to go by then I think those editor's [sic] have every right to be cruel. Phone posting. E: Jesus my phone jacked that post up, what the gently caress. Turtlicious fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Feb 18, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 20:35
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Turtlicious posted:It took me about two weeks, but I've heard some people say it'll take as long as a month. I'm going to be bummed out if the ratings take that long. It's real easy to bang out a few articles without much thought.
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Feb 18, 2014 22:37
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Textbroker has gotten a lot faster since the new year. They had a massive backlog of unrated articles, enough so that it would take 3-4 months for them to go through and rate everything of mine all at once. January 1 they announced they were just rating everything neutral and starting fresh, so they can try to keep up with it. We'll see how long before they fall into the same backlog, though.
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Feb 18, 2014 22:47
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A quick update. I had my first 5 rated after submitting them on the 11th and 12th of last week. So it looks like they are taking about a week now.
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Feb 18, 2014 22:53
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Nighthand posted:Speaking of Writer Access, there's been some drama with new writers and some lack of transparency on their part. A couple of new staff members have been doing things like making stealth edits to content without writer feedback, and in a couple of cases, have added incorrect grammar or typos to the piece. The client then sees this as coming from the writer and it reflects poorly on everyone involved. It hasn't been disastrous yet for anyone, but it's worrying. There's also the casting calls issue; apparently, when a casting call is posted, it gathers writers, and then the WA staff make suggestions for the client as to which writers they should pick. It leads to things like me, with an Elite status in Gaming, being declined for game reviews repeatedly. I've not heard anything about staff editing content, but I've seen a lot of buzz about the casting call recommendations. What I can't understand is what criteria the WA staff are using to recommend writers. If you're getting passed over despite an Elite badge, what qualifications did the winning writers have? Are the writers who can churn out 50 articles a day getting all of the work, or is there some other factor? This whole thing makes casting calls seem like a huge waste of time. I have much better luck getting articles through idea orders. It's unfortunate that those are pretty uncommon.
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Feb 18, 2014 23:12
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Exactly. The whole thing isn't transparent, and the hints we've gotten are kind of slimy like that. One of the folks in the aforementioned FB group plans to contact the help desk (Mia) about the general concerns we have. I'll post updates if anything comes of it. Also, the "for people with a blog" idea order where the guy wants a post on your personal blog? 100% against the WA TOS, and they know, but they haven't taken it down. If you haven't already, don't bother submitting an idea.
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Feb 19, 2014 00:12
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I saw that. I was reading somewhere in the WA forums that the client was made aware that this was against the TOS, and was understanding about it, but that still looks like a mess to avoid. But at the same time, WA is pushing for writers with active G+ accounts to do their blog posts, which basically boils down to the same thing unless you want to spend all kinds of time making a fake account complete with fake activity. I'd love to hear what, if anything, the help desk has to say. I thought about messaging them myself, but wondered if it would go anywhere or just drive me further down the casting call recommendation list.
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Feb 19, 2014 00:54
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Bloody Queef posted:My wife applied to Focus Forward and Daily Transcription (whatever the two called out in the op were) and a few others over a week ago. Do the applications take super long to process or does she suck at transcription? Quoting as a follow-up. Wife just got accepted to Focus Forward today! This will be nice as we're working towards her staying at home and while we don't need the money to pay bills, it'll help boost savings and give her something to feel productive.
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Feb 19, 2014 04:06
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Got accepted into Babbletype recently as well.  Any experiences with them so far? I'm new to transcription services.
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Feb 19, 2014 13:07
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Can someone tell me what their experiences with iWriter, Scripted, WordGig, and BreakStudios have been? I'm widening my net to try and get more jobs.
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Feb 20, 2014 05:14
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I haven't personally worked for any of them, but some cursory searching indicates that WordGig pays on the low end, around Textbroker's 2-3 star levels. Scripted looks to be somewhat exclusive and might not have much work in the areas you're approved for. iWriter appears to have low-end pay as well, and you are guaranteed to start low and have to work your way up to higher paying assignments unless you pay ($147!) for their fast-track review. I know nothing about Break Studios. Feel free to try them out and let us know what you think, though.
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Feb 20, 2014 05:30
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Trip report: Just stick with Writer's Access, the money you'd make on the other side isn't even close what you'd make with WA, even if you only get one article a day. Other sites are grossly exploitative, and honestly the only one I don't feel slimy / like I'm being taken advantage of is WA. Iwriter wants 150 bucks to give you the good stars, especially since you have to work for essentially free until you do 30 articles. Applied for a few "Specialties" on Scripted, since it's the only way to get work there, and I'm being lazy and haven't filled out an application for WordGig. I really despise Textbroker, but they have work when you're level 4. If you're level 2 well... Enjoy working in the salt mines.
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Feb 22, 2014 23:16
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Is there anything that's open to Australians/International folk?
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Feb 24, 2014 00:24
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I own a travel website about backpacking in Europe — so... basically budget travel. I don't have a ton of time to create content so I'm thinking about paying people to write articles for me. My question is about how much should I pay for an article. I'm not talking about churn and burn articles. I want quality stuff. I just have no idea how much I should be paying for quality content. Thoughts?
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Feb 24, 2014 03:21
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Suspicious Lump posted:Is there anything that's open to Australians/International folk? Omits-Bagels posted:I own a travel website about backpacking in Europe — so... basically budget travel. I don't have a ton of time to create content so I'm thinking about paying people to write articles for me. My question is about how much should I pay for an article. I'm not talking about churn and burn articles. I want quality stuff. I just have no idea how much I should be paying for quality content. Thoughts? We were just having a discussion about this on Facebook. The consensus is - Textbroker rates, even at 4 star, are pretty drat low for quality content (and looking at your site, you don't want Textbroker's lower stuff) - $50 for a guest blog post is not uncommon, and those posts tend to be 500-1,000 words (http://www.makealivingwriting.com/150-websites-blogs-pay-writers/) - Some writers, those very experienced in specific niches, claim to command $300-$400 for a 1,000 word article. Presumably these are quite high quality. Some of these writers are just bragging about one project they sold, not a repeatable demonstration of their skills. I'm sure you can find quality content for a low price, but the more you pay, the better your content will be on average. Throw stuff up on Writer Access for 3 or 4 stars and you'll probably have 5-star writers giving you good content in hopes of bringing in solo work. Give them solo work and you'll be paying more than the open rates, but you'll know the quality of the writers you're working with. Go to eLance and set up a pitch and see who bites. A lot of it will depend on how many posts you want to buy and what your budget is. It'll also rely on finding the right writers you can count on to write quality content.
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Feb 24, 2014 05:03
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Unfortunately, transcription outside the US is something I know very little about. I know there are some companies based in other countries and some that allow international work, but I couldn't name any of them offhand.
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Feb 24, 2014 06:21
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I haven't done work for them personally, but Way With Words has an Australian office. I think they were originally based in South Africa and they do hire transcribers from different countries: http://www.transcriptionaustralasia.com/
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Feb 24, 2014 06:39
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Suspicious Lump posted:Is there anything that's open to Australians/International folk? I dabbled in transcription for a bit on oDesk once, and my employer there was Australian. If you're on oDesk (or Elance), PM me for details.
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Feb 24, 2014 06:49
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Is tutor.com still a thing? If so, how much work is it to set it all up proper? I can tutor chem, bio, and maybe math, but my regular income is good enough that if I have to have a rectal exam to work on the tutoring, I'd rather just get by on craigslist jobs and such.
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Feb 24, 2014 07:50
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I just got accepted and rated on textbroker at 3 stars. Unfortunately, 100% of the articles available are a minimum of 4 stars. Is this normal?
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Feb 27, 2014 02:14
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Refresh every 10 minutes or so. 3 star stuff comes up, though it gets gobbled up quickly.
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Feb 27, 2014 02:30
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There's a ton of 3 star stuff right now for those who need it. It's like 124 articles about vidja games.
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Feb 27, 2014 14:26
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