Textbroker - Writing for money (not vouchers)

KraftKakes

googler wrote: »

Copy and paste the original and new instructions side by side, and mail them to the client, pointing out how different they are.

Thank you for replying. The client has already acknowledged that the original instructions were "confusing".

TB are saying "either rewrite it or cancel out". Apparently, I am supposed to ignore the written instructions and take my guidance from the keywords instead.

It's certainly a steep learning curve. I'll say that :mad:

Natu

KraftKakes wrote: »

Thank you for replying. The client has already acknowledged that the original instructions were "confusing".

TB are saying "either rewrite it or cancel out". Apparently, I am supposed to ignore the written instructions and take my guidance from the keywords instead.

It's certainly a steep learning curve. I'll say that :mad:

As others have said in this thread, TB will always try to appease clients at the expense of authors. It's very frustrating and I'm afraid it sounds like you've unluckily picked a finicky author. Honestly, you'll probably find that most articles go through without a hitch.

Prioritising keywords over written instructions sounds like very strange advice, and I'm pretty sure some clients wouldn't like that. I know orders are sparse at the minute, but if it seems like I'd have to write a jumbled article just to fit in the keywords I pass on the article. As another poster said, if the client has a high revision or rejection rate it can be a warning flag that they might not be worth your time and energy.

KraftKakes

Natu wrote: »

As others have said in this thread, TB will always try to appease clients at the expense of authors. It's very frustrating and I'm afraid it sounds like you've unluckily picked a finicky author. Honestly, you'll probably find that most articles go through without a hitch.

Prioritising keywords over written instructions sounds like very strange advice, and I'm pretty sure some clients wouldn't like that. I know orders are sparse at the minute, but if it seems like I'd have to write a jumbled article just to fit in the keywords I pass on the article. As another poster said, if the client has a high revision or rejection rate it can be a warning flag that they might not be worth your time and energy.

I've surprised myself by managing to rewrite the article. If it gets REjected after all that, I'll be DEjected

Regarding the revision rate. Wouldn't 15% be roughly what the rate would be if the client put up 13 articles and asked for two to be revised?

I wish I were faster. I envy these authors who can do an article in an hour.

Lilyann

Natu wrote: »

As others have said in this thread, TB will always try to appease clients at the expense of authors. It's very frustrating and I'm afraid it sounds like you've unluckily picked a finicky author. Honestly, you'll probably find that most articles go through without a hitch.

Prioritising keywords over written instructions sounds like very strange advice, and I'm pretty sure some clients wouldn't like that. I know orders are sparse at the minute, but if it seems like I'd have to write a jumbled article just to fit in the keywords I pass on the article. As another poster said, if the client has a high revision or rejection rate it can be a warning flag that they might not be worth your time and energy.

I'd agree with that, and in my experience if the clients English is not very good in the instructions, for some reason they seem to be more picky! I'm not sure why. But the four times this has happened to me its always been for a client who had a brief full of errors.

Avon2001

Hi,

You have my sympathies and I'll try to offer something a little more constructive.

Firstly, if you're to stand a chance of making any decent money from TB, you need to be able to write quickly. If you're a slow writer you may be better off somewhere like Vivatic, although their payment process is infuriatingly slow.

Secondly, you have to understand the rules of the game and the reality is, it's a buyer's market in pretty much every area of life. That's how it is and I'm afraid this is a case of like it, lump it or leave.

Thirdly (or maybe secondly point 2), writers can choose assignments or not as they please. Personally I only take on jobs where the client can write a decent and reasonable brief and has an acceptable rejection rating. I also only take on assignments which either A interest me or B have potential market value elsewhere. That way if I were to get a rejection I felt was unreasonable, I could either A adapt the piece to suit the client, B write it off to experience and say I learned something or C drop the order and recycle the article for use elsewhere.

I'd also suggest that 4* writers should try and get on as many teams as they can. Once you're on, you're on (as I understand it), so you can still get 4* paid work, even if your rating briefly drops.

If TB isn't to your taste, there are other sites out there, but personally speaking, for all their quirks, I still think they're one of the best around (and no I'm not on staff).

KraftKakes

Hi Avon. Thank you for such an informative post. My tale of woe had a happy ending. I decided that I would "go for it" and try and rewrite the article by the deadline, I did waver a bit along the way, wondering whether I should pull out and be done with it, but I plodded on and got it in with about an hour to spare. You can imagine my delight when not only was it accepted, but the client was delighted and gave me a glowing evaluation!

I want to get faster. The main reason I signed up was to improve my speed and grammar.

I've done a few jobs now. The latest was a bit of translation which I really enjoyed.

I will check out the other site though :-)

emilykf

Well, I'm happy to say that I've finally got my Texbroker ratings for all of the articles I've written (11 since the first 5 were evaluated and I stayed as a 3*), and all were rated 4* :T It's nice to be able to go onto the site and have a lot of choice

Interestingly, the majority of my feedback for the first 5 related to commas (not having enough of them), and I obviously heeded the advice as the only feedback for the recent ones have been that I'd put too many commas, ha ha!

leromancer

Hi, I've just only found your thread and just joined textbroker and submitted my first piece for evaluation. Fingers crossed lol
I am a French native speaker and am planning on using textbroker to supplement my income earned from my tutoring business. How will the fact that I am French be rated by Textbroker? An advantage or not really????

Lilyann

leromancer wrote: »

Hi, I've just only found your thread and just joined textbroker and submitted my first piece for evaluation. Fingers crossed lol
I am a French native speaker and am planning on using textbroker to supplement my income earned from my tutoring business. How will the fact that I am French be rated by Textbroker? An advantage or not really????

So long as your English is good... I can't see a problem at all. Plus there are articles to be written in a variety of languages - so make them aware you are bilingual.

All I would say is that recently I have found inconsistent grading of articles (compared to previous batches) and an increasingly distant staff.


It wasn't always like that, it seems to have happened as the company have grown - but maybe that is just my experience.

Plus they disregard the clients thoughts on your work - an issue which was mentioned here before. That is frustrating.

I agree with a previous poster, Elance is a better bet. You have to put in the legwork, but its consistent and I've had real gratitude from clients!

By the way, sorry for any errors...I'm not being paid to write this so I'm not checking!! Lol

mumonashoestring

Hello all, I registered with textbroker and submitted my writing sample a couple of weeks ago but haven't heard anything back yet. I did get an acknowledgement email and I know they say their average turnaround is a week to rate samples - has anyone else had to waitmuch longer than that? I'm wondering how long to leave it before worrying that something's gone wrong!