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Just signed up for TextBroker, but as a client not an author. Do you guys have any advice on how to make compelling postings so I only get the bestest authors? EDIT-Also, is it worth checking out the others? I got the impression that TextBroker was the biggest one. The field is engineering/science/industrial.
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Jun 20, 2012 19:28
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Long shot: Does anyone here make money playing Diablo 3?
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Jun 20, 2012 21:05
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LactoseO.D.'d posted:Long shot: Does anyone here make money playing Diablo 3? Yes, yes I do.
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Jun 20, 2012 21:27
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Scaramouche posted:Just signed up for TextBroker, but as a client not an author. Do you guys have any advice on how to make compelling postings so I only get the bestest authors? Be specific about what you want out of a writer. Revisions are good, rejections are bad -- work with us. Provide sources if you can. If you find an author whose work you really like, go to them for direct orders -- it may be more expensive but you don't risk having some random schmoe claim it and give you work you don't like. If you have multiple favored writers you can set up a team and invite them to it. Be careful with your keyword requirements. Try to make sure your required keywords make sense to use as-is in english. You'd be surprised how often something virtually impossible to work in comes up. As for checking out other sites in the role of someone paying for writing: that's up to you. If what you get from Textbroker is satisfactory in terms of speed, quality and price, stick with them. If you're not satisfied, check out a different site and see if it works better for you. E-Lance has pretty robust profiles you can check out, same with oDesk I believe. LactoseO.D.'d posted:Long shot: Does anyone here make money playing Diablo 3? There's an entire D3 economy thread in the Blizzard Games subforum: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3484844 I wish I could, I'd love to play that game and it's auction house, but I don't have a computer that can run it or the funds to buy one.
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Jun 20, 2012 21:51
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 MyGengo took me on as a German > English translator. There weren't any jobs at the basic level so I took the "pro" test right away and it seemed easier than the standard test. *shrug* Guess we'll see how they judge it in a month's time.Anyone else have experience workin at this site?
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Jun 21, 2012 05:57
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Nighthand posted:Be specific about what you want out of a writer. Revisions are good, rejections are bad -- work with us. Provide sources if you can. If you find an author whose work you really like, go to them for direct orders -- it may be more expensive but you don't risk having some random schmoe claim it and give you work you don't like. If you have multiple favored writers you can set up a team and invite them to it. Thanks for the info. Because this was the first posting a TextBroker guy actually called me up (at a phone number I didn't provide to them oddly enough) to confirm that I had set up the account, this was legit, etc. He said my first posting had good instructions and reasonable keyword requirements so we'll see. I'm not sure if he even cares as long as the money's already in their hot little hands.
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Jun 21, 2012 06:24
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They have been a bit more concerned with client instructions recently, one of their blog posts was encouraging writer feedback on the instructions and getting clients a better set of guidelines. Up until memorial day, there were upwards of several hundred assignments that had been sitting there untouched for weeks, if not months, because of how bad the instructions were. I don't know how everything looks from the client side, only from the writer side, so I just gave you what I like out of clients. I also tend to cherry-pick my articles more than some people, but in general the easier it is for a writer to write what you want, the better it is for everyone involved.
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Jun 21, 2012 06:32
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Derek79 posted:One thing that I have rarely seen posted are at home phone jobs. In addition to Leapforce and various writing gigs, I have been with a company called LiveOps since May of 2007. I take calls for a variety of programs, most notably direct response infomercials, which is what most people start in. Taking these calls, you are paid .25 per minute that you are on the phone plus commission when certain things are sold. If there is an infomercial on television, odds are we probably take calls for it. Hopefully you're still checking this thread since you don't have PMs.. Could you explain more of the details about LiveOps? Do you have to pay for multiple actual phone lines or do they all go through the same number? If the latter how do you know what you're taking a call for? Can you specify the hours that you work? This is something I could do regularly on nights/weekends but I'd like it to be fairly flexible if possible.
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Jun 21, 2012 15:01
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Lyon posted:Hopefully you're still checking this thread since you don't have PMs.. I just use one phone line and all the calls come through there. If you are working direct response, the script will pop up a second or two before your phone actually rings. You just read whatever it says and go from there. As far as the hours you work, there is a schedule. the available spots will be green and the taken spots will be yellow. A lot of times you might have to stalk for hours as people give them up regularly. If I don't go to the scheduled rollout, I can generally get a full days worth of hours with about 20 minutes of stalking the schedule page.
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Jun 21, 2012 18:12
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Derek79 posted:I just use one phone line and all the calls come through there. If you are working direct response, the script will pop up a second or two before your phone actually rings. You just read whatever it says and go from there. Interesting. Ok, I'm going to do this. I like phone work anyway that's where most my background is. Edit: Any idea how long the approval process takes? Also what is the typical volume of calls? Constant or is there a lot of sitting around? Lyon fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jun 21, 2012 |
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Jun 21, 2012 18:22
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Nighthand posted:They have been a bit more concerned with client instructions recently, one of their blog posts was encouraging writer feedback on the instructions and getting clients a better set of guidelines. Up until memorial day, there were upwards of several hundred assignments that had been sitting there untouched for weeks, if not months, because of how bad the instructions were. Welp, got the first submission back; the article is surprisingly not terrible. There were a few singular/plural confusion problems (not related to the keywords) but the language was tight, not too passive a tone. Developed a thesis well and obviously had a plan for the overall piece. All in all I'm actually relatively pleased.
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Jun 22, 2012 05:49
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So I'm sort of an amateur programmer/web developer and I signed up on Elance for the hell of it, but it sort of seems unlikely that I'd get any work. I can only submit 15 proposals per month (30 if I pay $10/month) and every single listing has at least a dozen proposals from companies in India that I doubt I can compete with when they're offering like $3/hour. I'm only asking like $9/hour myself as I get started so I can build a portfolio. Anyone have advice on how I should best do this?
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Jun 23, 2012 16:36
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I got accepted by Butler Hill and Leapforce...which do I go with?
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Jun 23, 2012 16:42
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I want to thank everyone who contributed to this tread. I've been accepted at both Daily Transcripts and Textbroker. Textbroker rated my sample a 4!  But I only got an 80% on the proofreading test  .
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Jun 24, 2012 21:03
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The proofreading test is absurdly difficult for something you can only miss one out of ten to pass. Especially since if something is incorrect according to AP style and correct according to Textbroker's rules, it's correct according to the test. There's just no defined place to find Textbroker's guidelines and what differs.
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Jun 25, 2012 02:14
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I'm seriously considering grabbing a pedal and taking a shot at some transcription work over the summer here and there. Does anyone have or know of some samples of what the end-result transcription should look like? I'm curious to see how the various "uh, um..." and [cough] expressions are formatted.
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Jun 25, 2012 02:28
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[00:02:30] KAZMEYER: Well, uh, I guess you'd say the... [COUGHS] the format for ums, uhs, and other things sort of, well, um, sort of looks like this. [LAUGHS] Every company does it differently so I recommend that you pay close attention to their [orientation?] materials to make sure you get everything [INAUDIBLE]. (Keeping up with the different styles is the most infuriating part of the gig, since to do this full time you pretty much have to have multiple clients. I can't count the number of times when I've had to go back and change an [INAUDIBLE] to (unintelligible) or [LAUGH] in the middle of a sentence to (Laughs) on its own line.) kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Jun 25, 2012 |
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Jun 25, 2012 02:33
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Nighthand posted:The proofreading test is absurdly difficult for something you can only miss one out of ten to pass. Especially since if something is incorrect according to AP style and correct according to Textbroker's rules, it's correct according to the test. There's just no defined place to find Textbroker's guidelines and what differs. On the plus side, my first article was already accepted! A good start. Kazmeyer, you mention needing multiple clients to do transcription full time. Was it difficult for you to get to that point? I know Daily Transcript mentions on their site that it is possible to make $400-$600 a week if you do enough work, but is that overly optimistic?
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Jun 25, 2012 03:08
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People Stew posted:I'm seriously considering grabbing a pedal and taking a shot at some transcription work over the summer here and there. If you apply for Daily Transcriptions they provide a sample to help with the test and there's an email address in case you have questions. Deacon of Delicious - I'm a stay at home mom and my baby needs a lot of attention, and I was able to make $180 the first week. If you're seriously committed, I think you could make $400 from the beginning if they offer you the work (edit: kazmeyer says below it would be too hard, so don't listen to me  ). I don't know if my quality went south or if they didn't have as much available but for my third week, I only made $90.Edit: To be clear, I want to work part time and aim to make about $200 a week. Tesla Insanely Coil fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Jun 25, 2012 |
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Jun 25, 2012 03:35
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Deacon of Delicious posted:Kazmeyer, you mention needing multiple clients to do transcription full time. Was it difficult for you to get to that point? I know Daily Transcript mentions on their site that it is possible to make $400-$600 a week if you do enough work, but is that overly optimistic? $400-$600 would be pushing it; if you got a bunch of rush work you might be able to do it, else you'd be pulling more than 40 hours at their usual rate. They don't always have enough work to provide everybody that much. Also, trying to make a full-time paycheck from one client is pretty much the single stupidest thing you can possibly do as a freelancer, because you have absolutely nothing in the way of job security and if they close up shop or just hit a drought, you're hosed. If you're good at what you do, you can often land on your feet -- freelancers live and die by the quality of their work, something that's kind of refreshing when you first come from the overly-politic hellscape of incompetence that is the business world. If you're talented, you'll find work, but it's always best to have a backup or three. My philosophy is to have way more clients than I need. Right now, I've got three active transcription clients, another that's going through a drought, another I can pull work from if I ever feel like it, search engine work, and a very intermittent writing gig. If everyone's flush with work, I get to prioritize the high-paying jobs, so that if one client has a nice easy as-broadcast I can tell the other I'll take a pass on their multi-speaker .70/min audio file. I've also got a couple other opportunities I'm toying with picking up, and I check Craigslist for transcriptionist wanted postings every few days. It can be difficult trying to freelance full-time at first, but once you get some serious experience under your belt it gets a lot easier. My latest gig nearly hired me just based on my resume alone, but when I took the time to Google the company mentioned in their test file to get the correct spelling of the name (research will save your soul, kids) they basically said "gently caress the rest of the testing" and put me to work immediately. And TIC -- my week last week at DT was pretty light. I think I turned down one file at one point, but even considering that I made about half what I did the week previous. It comes and goes. DT has been crazy busy compared to some of my other clients; I literally haven't had a job from one of them in three weeks. kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Jun 25, 2012 |
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Jun 25, 2012 04:18
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I figured that would be the case. I'm already working full time right now, so being able to freelance full time is more of a long-term goal. My intention is to work with multiple clients (and hopefully be doing multiple types of work) like you said, to make sure I tend to have enough work for myself. Thanks for your responses, everyone.
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Jun 25, 2012 04:25
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kazmeyer posted:And TIC -- my week last week at DT was pretty light. I think I turned down one file at one point, but even considering that I made about half what I did the week previous. It comes and goes. DT has been crazy busy compared to some of my other clients; I literally haven't had a job from one of them in three weeks. That makes me feel much better, you have no idea. And it makes sense that different projects would be winding down for a holiday break around now.
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Jun 25, 2012 04:36
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Yeah, the beginning of summer usually is real hit and miss, as is December. The good thing about multiple clients is that you stand a good chance that one of them isn't dead during the slow season, and you can make up the difference. Of my four primary clients, one's absolutely dead, one's running at less than half usual capacity, and the other two are bursting at the seams. I think my record week at DT was probably right around $400, but I had a lot of as-broadcast stuff that week which definitely skews high. At their normal rate, and assuming you hit the average of 15 minutes of tape per hour -- and it's rare you'll meet that average if you're taking every bit of work you can get, because if you're asking for that much work you're going to end up with some godawful business tapes -- you'd be pulling 38 hours to make $400. So yeah, it's technically possible to pull down $4-600 a week from DT, I just wouldn't expect that to start.
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Jun 25, 2012 06:37
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I went ahead and applied to Focus Forward since yep Daily Transcripts isn't giving out much work at the moment. I wish I was fluent in Spanish. They pay $37.50 per 15 minutes of Spanish audio transcription!
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Jun 25, 2012 22:19
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Yeah, bilingual transcription is huge right now. I actually took two or three years of Spanish in high school and remember a fair amount of it, so I'm considering grabbing Rosetta Stone to brush up and then taking a few courses for fluency. I see multilingual translation jobs every day; most are Spanish, but Hmong and Pashto are also pretty in-demand. (But, as I've said, learning Pashto means you're going to end up working for the government, so transcription will be the least of your worries.)
kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jun 25, 2012 |
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Jun 25, 2012 23:06
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Kazmeyer, I got a qq. Passed the two tests for the transcription sites (yay), but noticed that Express Scribe absolutely drags with .rm files, re: video is choppy, clip doesn't work properly, etc-- and failed completely at timecode offsetting. This could just be my machine, granted, but the file was so small and played so well on other platforms that I'm thinking it has more to do with the software itself. If it's my machine, and other people didn't have this problem, a) possible fixes would be great, b) could anyone suggest tower upgrades that might deal with this (tower was 100% new as of... seven years ago so, uh... welp). Anyway, the question is (since I don't know if this has been brought up before): does InqScribe do a better job? I've got several video/audio converters on-hand, but ES seems to want to make life miserable when it comes to that sort of thing, especially for that initial DT test. If so, that might be something to add to the OP when it comes to ES dragging its rear end with trying to correctly account for TCs, since even putting in the proper offset, it ended up a second or two behind. I also noticed that ES absolutely destroyed the audio, whereas RealPlayer allowed me to catch things that ES's (non-customizable) v/a player didn't (even with every known filter applied to it). It made the process a lot longer, so I'm definitely hoping that InqScribe doesn't do this. ...it doesn't, does it. ...because that was seriously the dumbest poo poo ever. and dropping $100 for the same problem seems kind of lame. ...though it may have more to do with my tower being the computer equivalent of a syphilitic geriatric that shits the bed every couple seconds (even though it can handle really, really demanding Premiere and Photoshop editing, so, I'll admit, I'm a little confused by this being an issue when all my codecs are updated). So, uh, if this is systems specs related: what system specs are recommended?
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Jun 26, 2012 02:34
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I've been using InqScribe. I think it's a pretty good program. I'm probably under utilizing because all I do is play files and transcribe with it. Then I copy/paste to Word. So far it has played everything flawlessly. My trial is almost up and I'll end up buying it. I was using Express Scribe but the trial ran out and I can't really do much with it anymore apparently. I was also having problems with that god awful Daily Transcripts .rm file for the test and also had to use RealPlayer for some parts. This was all with Express Scribe.
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Jun 26, 2012 03:22
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Honestly, it's been so long since I used Express Scribe (about three days at the beginning of my transcription career) I can't really give you any specifics. I picked up Inqscribe early on and adore the program; outside of a few minor issues I've never had a problem with it. But I can offer some advice that might help. There are a couple of different styles of pre-timecoded file you're going to run into. Some of them have an actual timecode track burned into the file, and if you have a program (like Inqscribe) that can read that track, you're awesome. Your timecodes will automatically sync with the on-screen number. Generally speaking, this type of file is either Quicktime or WAV, and they make your job much, much easier. Unfortunately, other types of files simply have an on-screen timecode with no burned track, and you've got to handle the offset yourself. This can get tricky, however, because, for instance, Inqscribe's built-in player can handle many different file speeds. I think the default is 30fps, but a lot of stuff is shot in 29.97 fps or 29.97 fps with drop-frame. If you don't have your player speed set to the video speed, then by the end of a 30 minute file, you're going to drift a few seconds on the time code. You'll literally start out at, say, TC+01:01:30 and by the end of the tape you'll be at TC+01:01:34. Then you also have cuts and editing to think about. When they have to do non-interview stuff for a while, they'll shut off the camera, and when they come back up the TC will have jumped a bit. You have to make adjustments for those yourself, and you pray that the sound guy isn't a complete shithead who cuts the recording every minute and a half (like I've seen happen). So what I would recommend is to try out Inqscribe. You'll need to pick up Handbrake, or Jodix Ipod Video converter, because Inqscribe likes Quicktime files more than anything else, and converting your video will save you enormous amounts of grief. Once I have a file in .mp4 format, I load it into Inqscribe at 29.97 fps, and let it play for a few seconds before dropping a timecode. I figure out the offset at that point, and then I scroll two-thirds of the way through the file and check the offset there. If it matches up, I know I have the right file speed; otherwise I try another fps setting and check it again. Worst case scenario, you get a file with a non-standard speed or a lot of cuts. When that happens, you just have to pay attention to your timecodes as you go through, and making notes where you need to change your offsets. (Inqscribe will let you highlight a block of timecodes and offset only those instead of changing them throughout the entire transcript, so you can deal with multiple cuts in the same file.)
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Jun 26, 2012 06:29
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Apparently I got mentioned once or twice in here, so I thought I'd update here! Everyone gets paid tomorrow. I'll probably be emailing everybody tonight and making sure that I have them squared away for the correct amounts and everything (even those of you that sent invoices in, I'm really thorough like that)! Then we're hibernating for a week or two to figure out what the next move is. We're doing something and it'll pay the same. [I'm trying to think of ideas where we own the sites and the original writers can keep credits for their portfolios, no promises though]... When we figure it out, we'll email. Thanks to everyone who was kind and patient and otherwise through a crummy few weeks. Also, I apologize to the 2-3 goons who emailed me that I didn't get back to. My inbox is an insane, hate-filled nightmare 
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Jun 26, 2012 20:58
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As an FYI for those of you thinking of doing LiveOps, I did the initial signup and qualification on April 26th and it took til today to get approved, the paperwork, and the info to run the background check. Background check is $50. So don't count on them if you need urgent cash, but they will eventually get around to answering you. I'll post again once everything clears and I can start working to give you guys an idea of the timing and such.
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Jun 28, 2012 02:37
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Textbroker also debuted a new thing. They're called Expert Orders. Currently they're highly screened and only for people with various financial certifications. Specifically, "All authors have been pre-screened for industry-specific, standard certifications, including CFAs, CFPs, CPAs and Series 7." However, if anyone actually possesses those certifications, it could be a goldmine. I don't know how much work there will be, but the pay rate is 20 cents a word. https://www.textbroker.com/us/news.php Edit: I had listed 25 cents a word, which is what clients pay. Writers get 20 of that. Nighthand fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Jun 28, 2012 |
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Jun 28, 2012 03:14
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Dr. Kyle Farnsworth posted:As an FYI for those of you thinking of doing LiveOps, I did the initial signup and qualification on April 26th and it took til today to get approved, the paperwork, and the info to run the background check. Background check is $50. So don't count on them if you need urgent cash, but they will eventually get around to answering you. I'll post again once everything clears and I can start working to give you guys an idea of the timing and such. drat I signed up a week ago and was hoping the turn around would be a bit faster. Two months is a pain in the rear end amount of time to have to wait. I'm really just trying to back all the money I lost gambling so it isn't urgent or anything but still. Were you able to receive the paperwork via fax/e-mailback and send it back similarly or did it all have to go standard mail?
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Jun 28, 2012 05:12
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Dr. Kyle Farnsworth posted:As an FYI for those of you thinking of doing LiveOps, I did the initial signup and qualification on April 26th and it took til today to get approved, the paperwork, and the info to run the background check. Background check is $50. So don't count on them if you need urgent cash, but they will eventually get around to answering you. I'll post again once everything clears and I can start working to give you guys an idea of the timing and such. drat, that's a long time. With LiveOps, there is never a set time. Some people hear back within a matter of hours and others take several weeks. It all depends on the needs of the lines. Did you get any info on what lines they are considering you for?
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Jun 28, 2012 07:52
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I could electronically sign the paperwork and everything, so that did help. LiveOps General, per the email. Whatever that means.
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Jun 28, 2012 18:22
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Other writers for Monarchy, have you heard any word?
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Jun 28, 2012 22:40
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Previous e-mail said payment would be on the 27th, got an on the 26th to confirm how much I was owed and that payment was coming, nothing since then. Although I still haven't turned in this other set of articles, so that could be my bad.
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Jun 28, 2012 22:44
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RabbitMage posted:Previous e-mail said payment would be on the 27th, got an on the 26th to confirm how much I was owed and that payment was coming, nothing since then. Not your bad - that's the last I heard of him, too.
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Jun 28, 2012 22:59
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Monarchy's currently reading the forums and posted today, so hopefully we'll get an answer. EDIT:...and he logged off. Welp. kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Jun 29, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 01:12
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I understand stuff happens, absolutely, so I was glad to hear from him when he said he'd be paying out on the 27th at the absolute latest-that was his everything-goes-wrong-worst-case-scenario date. But it's not the 27th anymore. Bummer.
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Jun 29, 2012 02:13
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RabbitMage posted:I understand stuff happens, absolutely, so I was glad to hear from him when he said he'd be paying out on the 27th at the absolute latest-that was his everything-goes-wrong-worst-case-scenario date. But it's not the 27th anymore. That, and the fact that he hasn't commented about it (but did log in to post in the PPACA thread) leads me to believe that we probably got screwed. Hope nobody took him up on that "take on some more work before the 27th" offer.
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Jun 29, 2012 02:15
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