Textbroker - Writing for money (not vouchers)

teamshepherd

I have been a member on the USA Textbroker for a while, its not bad but I haven't written anything in ages.
Last thing I've done there was a group of reviews for a customer who wanted them to be written in "internet talk" and with a certain amount of typos, slang, etc. Once I finished those the customer was thrilled and gave me great reviews, however my Textbroker rating fell down to 2 stars. I tried writing in to them explaining what has happened but they told me pretty much tough luck, once they grade work they wont look at it again.
Been holding a bit of a grudge over it since then.

On another note, just sent in a sample to the UK Textbroker the other day, got a standard 3 star but the amount of work on offer in the UK version (for any stars) is ....well not what I expected. And there is only a fraction of the categories as well.

SarahCarer

Shepard, that is a total pain! How annoying for you. All I'd say is get some of the dull 3* stuff done, when its there and then request another rating check. I've heard they judge on their own criteria and not customer ratings, which seems odd.

Sommer you are an inspiration! I'm cracking away at the €42 ones myself too

Kiran

They also don't seem to like the use of commas. I will hold my hands up and admit I sometimes add and extra one in however I had one article back which ended up without a single one to be seen. Definitely not right however I think the proof reading may have gone down a bit.

Oh well keep plugging away and see where it gets me!

Amys

I had a look at textbroker.com, it is now saying they areonly taking on US citizens . Writers from the UK, Australian, New Zealand etc.,are all being directed to the .co.uk site. Maybe there is more competition onthe UK site.



In the mean time, trying to up my income I am now locked out at textbroker.co.uk as the first five articles have been written. Also, I put my first article in at Constant Content 6 days ago, and it has not yet been reviewed, so do not want to put anything more in until I can see how picky they are.

movingon

When you guys write so much for Textbroker, how do you avoid self-plagarising?
It's true that there are a lot more article requests on there now lately, but it seems to me they are all about similar subjects and once I have written on or two on PPI or conveyancing etc, I run out of ideas on how to write another one without repeating myself.:eek:

CWSmith

Woo hoo, sent the trial off yesterday, got rated 4 today!

There's nothing on the list that I feel I can write about, so have looked at the Teamorders stuff ................ could probably do some of the Product and Fashion stuff, but dammit I'm losing my nerve now.:mad:

I've not investigated the entire site, but the subject matter seems very Australia-orientated, or is that my imagination? (And not a lot of help to a Londoner!)

cte1111

Don't lose your nerve, CWSmith, just pick an article and get typing.

There are loads of Australian articles on there at the minute, but there are other ones that pop up in between. I've not been keen on the Australian property ones, but have just done lots of work for an Aussie website, so it depends on the content whether you need local knowledge or not.

I've just done my first Team Order. Hope they like the content and I've fit into the format. I'm sure they'll let me know if not! Think I'll hold off on doing another until that one has been approved.

Bmth100

cte1111 wrote: »

I've just done my first Team Order. Hope they like the content and I've fit into the format. I'm sure they'll let me know if not! Think I'll hold off on doing another until that one has been approved.

Are you referring to the online auction guides by any chance? They're tough ones, but so worth it

DarrenK

Hi Movingon.

I understand what you mean about writing similar articles on the same subject.

As an article writer myself I have faced this issue and have found that the key is to not refer to your previously written articles when writing. Yes, it gets boring writing similar content each week but you will find that you write articles that pass copyscape and hence are fresh and unique rather easily indeed.

As well as writing without referring to previously written articles, look out for current news on the topic if that's possible. That way it's easy to throw in at least a brand new fresh paragraph each time. I find that is much easier than it might sound, though for sure it will depend on your topic.

I've had to write about quite narrow subjects from time to time like packaging materials for example. You might think you can't keep writing fresh content about sellotape and boxes every few days but it CAN be done!

I think you quoted as an example, PPI. Well there's plenty of industry news to throw into such articles on a daily basis but I guess it depends upon your writing brief and content requirements.

Good luck!

CWSmith

Please could someone answer a question about Teamorders?

For "products" you have to write 2 100-word samples to apply - that's straightforward enough.

Then it asks you how many articles you think you can do a week and in brackets it says 500 words. Does that mean you have to use 500 words to answer that extremely simple question? How on earth do you do that? I attempted to answer it in 2 sentences and got told I hadn't used enough words (even though my articles were 100 words each).