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Earn Money Writing for Textbroker.com
Felicia | Aug 25, 2008 | Comments 1,172
In an earlier post I mentioned Textbroker.com as a way for newbies to make money. It seems to be a legitimate site whereby upon acceptance, you’re paid for your article. I do have to warn you, however, that the pay scale is rather low.
Here’s how it works. You go to Textbroker.com and sign up for an account. After you agree to their terms and conditions (you have to check the checkbox), they’ll send you an email through which you can activate your account.
After your account is activated, you have to give them a sample of your writing. In my case, they listed 4 topics from which I had to choose one and write an article with a minimum of 120 words. They use the article to grade your writing on a scale of 1 to 5.
I ended up in the middle with a grade of 3. The higher your grade level, the higher the pay scale. I’ve got to admit, unless there is a tremendous jump in payment from a level 3 to a level 5, it’s barely worth it in my opinion.
Here’s a sample of the difference between a grade 2 and 3. I’d love to hear from Textbroker writers who have a higher rating to see if the pay scale increases significantly.
 Level 2 Pay Scale |
 Level 3 Pay Scale |
Armed with your rating, you get to choose topics on which to write. They will only display topics for which your rating qualifies. After you select the topic, you follow the instructions and write and submit the article accordingly and wait for approval (or revision if necessary).
Upon approval, your earnings remain in your Textbroker account until they exceed $10. Once your balance exceeds $10 you may request payment. Textbroker pays by PayPal by the 10th of each month. You must put in your request for payment before the 5th of the month. If not, your balance is rolled over to the next month.
Just for grins, I signed up and wrote a 320-word article for a payout of $1.54. Like I said, it was just for grins. I’m still waiting to see if it will be approved.
I don’t think Textbroker is a service that I’ll use, but for newbies looking to get their feet wet and earn a bit of cash, give it a try.
Filed Under: Demand Studios • Freelance • Legitimate • Opportunities • Self Employed • Textbroker • Working from Home • Writing
Glad to be of service to you, Bree. That was my only intention in assembling the ebook. I just racked up $1400 on Textbroker in the past 10 days, all level 5 articles. It is worth it to strive for perfection (hah, like I am that!) to get the higher pay. But, I did fine with mostly level 4 stuff in the past, as I explained in the ebook.
It looks like a lot of people agree that TB is an excellent place to write, reliable, they pay on time and the editors are really great. The best thing is to learn their rules and what they want. A lot of new writers seem to want everything handed to them on a silver platter, and skew things in their favor when it is the client who has priority because they are what makes the whole thing pay.
For example, someone wanted to force clients to make approvals by the 4th and 20th of each month so THEY could be paid on time. Jeez, you cannot do that! Learn to handle your money better! LOL
Hey all! It’s been awhile since anybody posted in here, so thought I would try to get it going again! This isn’t reaI lly about Textbroker, but though I would ask my TB colleagues. Has anyone heard of Artihub? I got a Facebook request from them (I guess I triggered their radar since I have Freelancing as my career). I looked at the site. Can’t really make much of it. It looks fairly new. I found somewhere that it was created in Dec. 2010.
On the Textbroker front, I have been getting quite a bit of DOs from two new clients lately. One sent 74 product descriptions (I hope they send more, as they were easy to do). The other sends product descriptions and blog posts. He has been sending them consistently, and he implies he will continue to do so. I previously had decided I didn’t like DOs, but I can see their usefulness now that I raised my DO rate!
I worked with training my computer to recognize my voice on the Windows voice recognition program last night. Since I type very slowly,I am hoping it will cut my writing time in two. Of course, I am sure there will be plenty of editing involved!
Hope everyone is doing well!
Do you know what happened with the orders for that really big client – you know who I mean? I wonder if they were unhappy with the work or something. I really enjoyed doing those.
Natalie, I’m not sure, but I kind of wonder if that is why things seem to be moving slower lately. I wonder if the editors have further work to do with those after the authors did them. I have to admit that I never actually tackled any of them (slap me on the hand…I’m a shame to my colleagues). I was pretty busy with a couple of clients over on CC at the time. I also had to get my WiseGEEK quota in by the end of the month (I always seem to put them off to the last few days…doing it again this month). From what I could tell, those were kind of detailed. and I know they were very important. I didn’t want to tackle them until I could give them my full attention…which never happened
. I did manage to do a couple of easy product descriptions that were on the board with all those orders. Those were those two that turned into DO clients! Anyway, I’m not sure what happened with that big client, or if we will get any more orders. I do, however, think the editors might be cracking down a little harder. Either that, or there have been a couple of new editors in the past couple of months. I haven’t had a review in over a month (though I will happily go without one), but they seem to be making a lot more comments on things than they used to! (or maybe I am making more mistakes). That is good, as it helps us know how we are doing and what we need to improve on, but a little scary at the same time.
I only managed to do a few of them myself. Maybe that was the problem – all of us weren’t tackling them quickly enough. In any event, I wish that the staff at TB would send a message to us and let us know. They were very communicative about getting the project off the ground; since then, it’s been radio silence.
My reviews are behind as well. In fact, I emailed the editors to find out if multiple mistakes in a backlog of un-reviewed work would jeopardize an author’s 5-star status.
They were kind enough to promptly reply. Essentially, they will make us aware of problem and give us a fair chance to improve.
Before that reply, I was leery of having too much unrated work out there.
I think the orders for that big client just took too long to complete. It’s a shame because that would have made for a lucrative summer!
April – the comments have definitely been slow! Summer is going by too fast, though, as always.
I’ve never heard of Artihub. Keep us posted on what you find out.
On the Textbroker front for me, my time management skills are lacking, as usual. More specifically, it’s my “just say no” skills.
Now my slate is clear and I intend to fight to keep it that way. I practice in the mirror: no, no, no!
Funny how my earnings go up in proportion to the hours I work.
I started writing for textbroker recently. I started with a 3, wrote the required 5 articles before being evaluated again and ended up with the same 3 rating. I’m wondering if textbroker keeps writers at a lower level for awhile so the pay out stays low? And, do they continue to rate you so that you have the chance to go up in rating?
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I submitted my sample a week or two ago and got a 4 rating to start with. Unfortunately I was required to print out a tax form they emailed me and postal mail it back to them. My printer doesn’t work and the only person that was kind enough to print it out for me lives halfway across the country so I’m waiting for her letter containing the form so I can mail it back to them AND wait for them to receive it.
I really am anxious to get started.
If I remember correctly, it used to be that you could start writing but just wouldn’t be paid earnings over a certain amount until the form was received. Has this changed? Or am I misremembering?
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I just hadn’t noticed that in the email they sent so I thought I had to wait. I’m not particularly happy that they told me I was a ’4′ in the email I got after they accepted my writing sample but when I went to the site they had me as being a ’3′. There is almost nothing available for level three and what there is is the same thing over and over.
I really wouldn’t know what to write about cigars or silk thread. The silk thread one besides being very rude and condescending also said he didn’t want anything about crafts or the origins of silk thread. Well what does that leave? I’m disappointed to put it mildly.
same here, but after a few more articles i was bumped up to a 4. make sure you get a few 4 ratings in there. those generally dont have anything wrong with them. did you get an email with suggestions? level 4 articles are just approved without the suggestions, so work on your weaknesses.
Hi Susan, welcome to Textbroker! The higher your rating, the more money Textbroker makes. So, it’s really to their advantage to help you earn a higher rating.
Some of the common errors that result in lower ratings are misplaced or missing commas. Grammar Girl’s blog is an excellent resource. Also, structure in the article is important. I include a clear intro, followed by paragraphs that support the intro, followed by a concluding paragraph that wraps it up. I also make sure that each paragraph has a topic and transitional sentence.
Each of your articles is rated. But, the turn around time seems to be longer, probably because the editors have a backlog of work.
Hang in there, I am sure you are close to the four star rating! If your goal is to make it to five stars, then take your time with each article to get it near perfect. If your goal is cranking out four star articles, then follow the guidelines above.
I think some people do just as well hourly cranking out a lot of four star articles as some of us five star writers make hourly.
Thank you so much for all the valuable information Mandy. I really appreciate it!
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I just opened an account on textbroker, and was given a level 3 rating. I’m a little intimated by what I see so far. The titles are often vague and most have very little instruction. For those of you who’ve been doing this for a while, how did you first figure out what to write about when all you had to go off of was a couple of keywords?
Thanks.
I really have no idea where to start and I’m still teed off because based on my writing sample they gave a 4 rating but when I went to the site they said I had a 3. There is almost nothing for a 3 rating.
I’m going to look into some other writing opportunities that aren’t quite so vague.
The first article I did over three years ago was about sunglasses. I chose it because at the time I was selling sunglasses on eBay. It was easy to write.
Instructions are important; I avoid the long and insulting ones, figuring those clients will be difficult or rejecting.
Find a few that are of interest to you, even if it takes some time to find them. Once you get the first 5 rated, you may find they bump you up to level 4. At that point, you will then be able to take the proofreading test that is demanded for any further increase to level 5. Read on the forums and blogs about that test; it is ridiculously confusing and has multiple answers and possibly even a question with no right answer. You can do okay at level 4.
Right now they have had an influx of many new writers. They also have new editors since summer and they are very picky to a fault.
Hi Sherri,
I understand what you mean, as I’ve found some of the assignments to be a bit fuzzy on Textbroker. You can email the client and ask for clarification. I’ve actually done that. The problem is, however, you never know how long it might take the client to get back to you. In the meantime someone else could likely snag the assignment. It’s still probably better than spending time researching and writing an article that might end up being rejected because you took the wrong approach. Good luck to you!
Susan
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Not only are the new editors ridiculous, the system is awfully slow. I’ve had an article out there for over 2 months that they haven’t rated yet. Used to be a 4, now a 3, just for using the % sign instead of “percent” nearly a year ago. No articles to write, and the pay is ridiculous. $.01 a word for a 3, $.015 for a 4. Yeez……
Hope I can find an alternative soon.
I’ve been having trouble with Textbroker lately…I was a “3″ for one year although clients and direct orders indicated a “level 4″. Then I notified TB and they immediately upped it to 4. Now, they’ve lowered level to “3″ again and were behind 26 articles in evaluating.
They are going through some changes evidently and I’ll stick with them as now they pay on a weekly basis. I don’t know what I’ll do about levels as they keep going up and down despite excellent ratings from clients and direct orders. Good luck everyone.
First, thank you for such an informative post! Very detailed and I am glad I came across this post before signing up.
Second, thank you to everyone who has commented on this post and shared your experiences both good and bad.
Kim
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I don’t know what is going on with TB. After keeping me at a Level 3 for several months, they immediately upped it to 4 after an inquiry on my part.
Now, they’ve down me to 3 again and there I am staying no matter what I do.
There is virtually no work coming in at all on 3s so even if I were 4 or 5, they’d still couldn’t evaluate my work because I can’t even get 3 assignments.
The Direct Orders I once received regularly have also disappeared from the radar.
I’m holding on because I need the $$$ but I am looking elsewhere.
They are really good paying weekly and support is very efficient. But Lord only knows who they have as editors giving evaluations now a days.
They’ve caught up pretty much…at one time I had 30 articles in backlogged to be evaluated.
My writing quality has not diminished at all, if anything, it’s become more skillful.
I’ve worked hard working on my writing abilities. I hope they don’t do this good site in with too much experimenting on other projects. Happy Thanksgiving every one.