Textbroker - Writing for money (not vouchers)

karen1573

Hello! Nice to find some fellow UK TB people.

I've been on there since last Summer - I started off outsourcing work there, but things have got tighter for me and this week I've started writing.

I am on 4* and just failed the proof-reading test a second time :mad: (I went ahead and did the assessment when I first signed up to outsource, as I wanted to assess their quality standards!)

Not had any direct orders yet - but then I only filled out my profile yesterday! I'll see if that helps. I also upped my direct order price to 2.0c, as I think leaving it at the minimum may put off clients - they might assume that you're incapable of charging any higher!

I'm also going to try signing up at oDesk, Freelancer and Elance as a writer, to see if I can pick up some regular work from there.

googler

spiritus wrote: »

3* orders are zero and there are only two 4* ones as I type.

I really can't see how anyone can drag themselves out of a 3* level if there are no orders for people to complete.

I also believe many 4*'ers also snap up 3* projects when they can making it even more competitive.

As I said earlier, there's probably people outside of this forum who are authors, so bemoaning the situation here will have little effect.

Also, if the 4* authors have finished all the 4* articles, and there's some 3* waiting, what would you have them do? Leave them for the 3* authors out of charity?

Assuming someone who works a 5-day week, say - should they give up two days out of five, and be paid for the remaining three, so that an apprentice can fill in and learn their role?

Sommer43

It's a jungle out there and for those of us who are full time authors, we take the work regardless of the level.

Catriona_P

EDIT: Thanks for the responses guys

googler

Looks like none of the 5* authors want to pick up their articles. Twenty Four 5*, and one 4* sitting around at the mo....

Maybe TB should institute a tweak such that if an article isn't written at a certain level within a week, it should be dropped one level ...?

jimjamspread

Yeah. The elusive mystery of articles that lurk behind the 5* open order system! There is quite an interesting review of Textbroker in which the reviewers paid for the same article title in every star rating. They posted the results online. It's quite interesting to see the differences. I can't post the link, since I'm a new user, but you can find it by googling (textbroker review examples 5 star 4 star) and click on the affiliates4u forum

CWSmith

Interesting! Good to know that some people appreciate our efforts then! I also would love a see what a 5* article looks like and what the finished article is supposed to look like too! I'm nearly tempted to message that lot and ask if any 5*s that they might have bought are online somewhere - even though they are referring to the US version to TB by the looks of it. But clearly TB are far too picky about their 5* authors and there aren't nearly enough of them. It will never be me, TB and myself are never going to completely agree on commas!:(

I see there's nowt on TB at the moment except for the French one that seems to have been there for ages. I've been so lucky, I've had a meaty pile (i.e a lot more than 500 words!) of private work these past couple of weeks which has been brilliant.

jimjamspread

Hmmm, I have a friend that writes for the U.S. site and they had 1310 4 star articles when she was last on. Insane compared to the UK one. Apparently the .de German site gets lots of orders too. My guess is that unless clients want specifically UK content, most of them will order through the US system because either a) that's what they've always done or b) US english is more widely used so more useful

googler

jimjamspread wrote: »

Yeah. The elusive mystery of articles that lurk behind the 5* open order system! There is quite an interesting review of Textbroker in which the reviewers paid for the same article title in every star rating. They posted the results online. It's quite interesting to see the differences. I can't post the link, since I'm a new user, but you can find it by googling (textbroker review examples 5 star 4 star) and click on the affiliates4u forum

First thing that jumped out at me was the grammar howler in the 4* article... there were far worse errors in the 2*, but I wouldn't have expected a 4* to mix up 'its' and 'it's' ...

jimjamspread

Yeah the grammar in the 4* wasn't brilliant. In terms of content though, To me the 5* article just looked like a 4* article without the errors. Actually, even the 2*/3* aren't bad in terms of what they suggest, it's just the way they present their ideas I guess.