 This one is a freebie. If you want to learn the basics of becoming an online freelance writer, download So You Want to Be a Freelance Writer (also available in Kindle format).
|
Earn Money Writing for Textbroker.com
Felicia | Aug 25, 2008 | Comments 1,193
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
I haven’t written for Textbroker for about six months, but I’m still subscribed to Felicia’s excellent blog post! For anyone wanting to get off of Textbroker, I’d recommend applying at Contently or joing the Freelance Writers Den where there is a job board with advertisements for freelancing jobs. The den also helped me by answering business and writing related questions. And the den caters to writers trying to get off the content mills. I work with my own clients now and make more money doing so with much less headache!! Good luck, everyone!
I thank God for places sites such as No Job For Mom. After having posted several times and reading some of these comments, I am encouraged to keep writing no matter what. Textbroker is going through some kind of identity crisis I am certain. My ratings go from level 3 to level 4 and several weeks or months later, to level 3 again. This is in my opinion, simple exploitation. I’ve applied to WriterAccess but their test for English proficiency was just as encouraging as my Textbroker experience.
There didn’t seem to be a logical train of thought for grammar rules, just a matter of “answer (c) was perfectly correct. However, it would have been best to use (d).”
Editing for some of these sites has become a matter of which side of the bed did the editor get up on. However, this writer shall never say die!
Does anyone know what is really going on at Textbroker? I’ve written for them for about two years, and all of my articles have been rated 4. Now I’m worried I might lose that rating after hearing all of your stories.
I don’t understand how TB can be so insensitive to their authors. Isn’t that where they make their money?
This just further proves the point that you shouldn’t ever depend on just one or a few sources for your income. Hey, I’m as lazy as the next person and don’t do enough to diversify the sources of my income.
Your bad experiences with TB is another wake-up call for me. Does anyone have any suggestions for other writing sites?
I believe it has to do with the company growth over the past year. When a small company is taken over by one with bigger thoughts, changes are made that may work for the new company but that seem not to work for the former associates of the company that was taken over. They have a huge amount of orders most of the time, have added many editors to try to handle the load, but obviously in view of the slowness of their responses in rating articles and responding to inquiries from writers, they still are swamped. They must be reaching their corporate goals, and they have added new websites in other countries like Franch, UK, Spain, etc., so their bottom line must be working well.
For the “old” writers, there are bruises because of the changes. I still disagree with having writers proof other writers’ works. It is a conflict of interest because they are not trained editors; all they did was manage to pass a “test” that can be passed with mere luck. They may also just be power-hungry and mean or demeaning to other writers.
I also have a problem when I look at so many hundreds of orders and still cannot find one that I would want to write. The quality of clients and work offered has also changed, but that does not matter to corporate because they will still make money, and more money. And there are many writers at TB who love the orders.
There are plenty of writers at TB who claim they are making $100 a day writing level 2 and 3 orders early in the morning, when there are hundreds of cheap orders up. I never take those on because it would take more time to set up the job than to do it; seems like a waste of effort. But it does work for some, and there is plenty of money to be made.
I watch to see if there will be some changes again; perhaps they will drop the proofreading test requirement for level 5 jobs and return to their personal assessment of quality writing. That test can be passed by luck, so what good it is? They are getting tons of orders and making money, so that is all they want. I think their editors should be made to take it and pass with 100% every single month to remain an editor.
A writer is just a nickname or number; this is not and has never been an “employee” type situation. You are a faceless entity in cyberspace. But it can pay the bills, and you can do it with little talent, it seems. For some, it is a blessing. Others find work elsewhere or start their own businesses. Meanwhile, it can be and should be another good egg in your basket of work possibilities that you can always turn to, no matter what level you are granted.
Hmm…One has to wonder if some of the new editors are from Demand? Still haven’t returned to TB…doing well elsewhere for now. I’ll probably pop back in eventually, but I think I will watch and wait to see if things improve. I hope things get cleaned up there soon. It was a really great place.
Megan: You should explore some other sites if TB is your only source of income (Felicia has a lot of insome sources listed here). A freelancer should never only have one source of income. Don’t think of yourself as unemployed, consider yourself self-employed as a freelance content writer.
I have had the same perplexing experience recently with TextBroker. Been a 4-star for years and now suddenly I am an idiot and can’t seem to use a comma “their” way to save my soul. Every article I have sent through recently has received negative feedback even though I have not changed my style of writing or using commas. I am looking for somewhere else to write in order to supplement my income.
I’m a bit hacked off at Textbroker right now for some of the same reasons others have already stated. After over a year of writing at four stars, and less than four months after passing the proofreading test, I have just been demoted to three stars. This demotion came on the heels of a slew of incorrect corrections given to me on about ten articles.
Some of the “corrections” given were that I should not put a comma after introductory phrases; a sentence should never begin with “and” or “but”; the word “which” should never be used, but should always be replaced with “that.” There were also numerous comma “corrections” which made absolutely no sense.
I emailed my concerns to the general TB email and received a reply today. John, who answered my email, basically told me that their editors are overloaded and that he knew mistakes had been made (on my articles, specifically), but offered to do nothing to correct these mistakes or reverse my demotion. I got the impression that TB is taking the stance that they will support their own employees regardless of mistakes being made.
I’m very upset about this simply because I have no recourse. TB has admitted to mistakes which have hindered my ability to make money, but refuse to do anything about it. There is no one else to whom I can complain about this, so they automatically win.
I’m unsure as to whether or not I will continue writing for TB because of all this, which is hard for me as I need the money I was making as I’m currently unemployed. I just wish that TB would be aware of the mistakes their editors are making, be proactive about getting things fixed within their own company, and reverse this new trend of being (in my opinion) anti-author.
Same thing happened to me; I worked on there for two years as a four-star author and was demoted to three stars after inane “mistakes” and comments that implied I’d never heard of a comma before. On top of that, the email I sent was useless as I received a reply that basically said “We can’t fix it, so do better work.” I was pretty pissed off, but I wasn’t really in a position to leave.
The best thing I can advise is writing carefully and sending your work through a pair of grammar checkers. I’ve found polishmywriting.com and spellchecker.net/grammar/ works well (in that order). You’d just have to be careful to avoid the bad suggestions the latter makes. By taking the extra time to ensure all of my work was polished, I made it back up to four stars… still haven’t done any work for them since because I’ve moved on, and I’m not sure that I will if this ever happens again.
Long story short: You can make it back up to four stars, so just persevere and look for other avenues of work in the meantime in case their poor anti-author attitude continues/worsens.
Megan–I am SO with you! After 465 articles, all rated 4 star, Textbroker rated a slew of recent articles and bumped me down to a 3! I don’t agree with the ratings, and am very upset they have greatly limited my ability to earn money.
I’m looking for advice on a Textbroker situation. I am very much ticked off at them. After nearly a year of over 900 articles and making 80% on my first proofreading test, a few days ago, I was sure I got the 90% pass on the test (that you can only take every 3 months).
The application did not return a score and TB refuses to let me do an immediate retest. I sent them my test with answers and they refuse to go over it. I was once an avid participator on their forum and was very supportive of TB and other writers. After I found I couldn’t control my sometimes radical expressions, I stop contributing. I’m a level 4 writer and late last year had been demoted after I went all out to write and make cash. Back on level 4, I’ve learn to slow down. Level 5 pays nearly 3x much more. Any advice would be appreciated.
I do hope Felicia maintains positively and well in the direction she wants to go. It was through this site, a year ago, that I hooked up to TB.
Derrick, I took the liberty of moving your comment to the Textbroker thread. We’ve got a few Textbroker folks who might be able to help you.
Thanks! Your site (and other sites) is awesome.
Hi Derrick – I sympathize with you about the demotion, that does hurt. For the other problems, try to email direct to Christina Zila – address your email to her attention. She was always very helpful to me in the past. It would be important for you to either find out if they ever got your test and can tell you what the grade was. If you kept a copy, I think the test is the same and you might be able to just redo it if the first try never did actually register.
As for the forums, I try to not particpate. All questions are answered by TB in their blog and they are the only ones who know real answers. Forums on most websites are screwy, except here.
Thanks for your reply Grandma. At level 4, I do most of my writing for teams on tech and economics. I have enjoyed TB and had even contributed a short story to a contest. Zila has been promoted and I must say she was their best, personable editor. I have already sent them a bunch of messages as regards the un-scored test, but will try to reach Zila in a day or so.
One can be assured TB is reading these comments. I hope they can keep their procedures fair and open.
Meanwhile, I am looking forward to taking time and enjoying some of the ideas here on Felicia’s site. (Perhaps another of her sites can get me to do that annual prep digging of my ma’s garden!) I really think ebooks and blogs are the way to go for those Internet savvy. One must be their own boss! Thanks for your response!
ps; TB is great for learning AP style, be mindful it is their rendition of AP but ok.
I know it probably isn’t much comfort, Derrick, but there are rarely ever any proofreading assignments. Maybe approving more proofreaders isn’t a priority due to the lack of work? Experience tells me that the proofreading assignments are snapped up quickly but I would be interested in some stats over the past six months so I know if it’s even worth checking for them in the future.
Crystal recently posted..Amazon Book Review Rebuttal – Are You Kidding Me?
Hi Crystal – re: proofreading – I am totally not interested in ever doing proofreading for anybody. I completely feel that having another writer at Textbroker proofread the articles that a fellow Textbroker author has submitted is a huge conflict of interest. I certainly do not want another TB author rating my work, ever.
The other thing that continues to bother me is the way the ratings are coming down with people getting downgraded for one tiny error. That is ridiculous and a waste of the client’s time. The editors are supposed to fix little crap like that, IMO, that should be their purpose, not training writers. If writers are that bad, they should be excluded or downgraded.
Things have changed a great deal in the past year. That is all I want to say about that. I had been extremely pleased with and happy with TB previously, and I earned a lot of money over there writing high quality articles for excellent clients. Now I only take direct orders at my price. FWITW
With the exception of two articles last Nov, I haven’t written for TB in nearly two years, but I did proofread four dozen articles over the course of about a month last spring. Since then, I’ve only seen one proofreading assignment. I’m not sure if it’s because there aren’t any or if I just don’t catch them.
I actually enjoy the proofreading more than the writing and don’t feel it’s a conflict of interest beings the author isn’t identified and proofreaders don’t give a rating – all you do is make minor changes to correct spelling, punctuation, etc.
I suspect the proofreading option was initially seen by clients as a way to get higher quality writing for less money as they could post assignments at level 2 and then have a level 4 or 5 clean them up. Not sure what it costs, but it seems like I figured out at the time that a proofread level 2 article was less spendy than posting at level 3. It must not have worked that way, however, beings there’s rarely anything to proofread.
Glad to hear the direct orders are keeping you plenty busy, Grandma. Do you have any experience with Team Orders? Looks like some of those pay really well.
Crystal recently posted..Amazon Book Review Rebuttal – Are You Kidding Me?
Never tried team orders, turned down a couple invites – mostly because the pay was too low. My last direct order was wonderful, but last year, and TB screwed around so long approving this client’s first order that, although he was extremely pleased with what I wrote and WAS going to send more, he never returned. Very disappointing. I think I made $36 on that one order.
No direct orders at all this year so far. I always thought that the team order option would reduce open orders and direct orders. Never liked it, and I believe I was correct in my prediction. There are about 180 team order clients…orders that could have been placed on the open board and kept writers busy and happy.
I work with private outside clients now, and a couple other websites. I still need to do more with my ebook website and write up a couple more ebooks. I still look at TB open orders from time to time, and like right now when there are about 1000 orders available, I am amazed that there is not even one that I want to write up.
Things change – that is the only reality and consistency, in life and online. IMO
Yeah grandma, things do change. I haven’t done anything there for the past couple of months. After a couple of incorrect corrections from the new editors (yes, a couple mistakes were legit, but at least a couple of comments in the last two batches were incorrect.) and a “warning” that my 5* status could be at risk, I decided to take a break from them and see how I could do financially if they dropped me back to a 4. Actually, I have done better the past three months (and with less work)than I have done in all the months since starting freelancing full time two years ago! So, I now know I will be ok if they drop me, though very discouraged I am sure. I don’t work with DO clients much…I just prefer to “pick and choose.” I just glanced in at the forums, and it appears the “incorrect corrections” are becoming pretty frequent. That can be expected with new editors on board, but I had hoped it would be back to normal after a couple of months.
Speaking of the forums, I used to participate frequently in there. I only occasionally glance in now. Once it became a playground for complaining, putting others down, etc., I decided to stay away. As I recall, that is what many of us feared would happen when they introduced the forums.
Yes, change happens, though sometimes those changes are not for the good. TB will always hold a place in my heart as the first freelancing place I found. It gave me the courage to make a career out of it, but I am saddened to say that, at least for now, it is no longer amongst the windows I keep open on my computer all day.
There are plenty of orders up lately at TB. This week the number of level 4 orders was up around 500 to 900 all week. Winter, especially January, is always a slow month. In three years, it has been my lowest paying month at all sites. Springtime is when things really pick up, so don’t give up hope.
Not sure about the editor situation; check the forums for that. Seems like they may be catching up a bit since it is slow.
They have added new websites in several other countries and have an author extravaganza planned for April in Las Vegas.
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.
It was sounding good, and I was getting excited about signing up until the most recent comments on this article. Does anyone know if there is a follow-up to any of these complaints?
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
Kim recently posted..Key Things To Know About Web Hosting
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.
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.
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
Susan recently posted..Free Flu Shots for Employees
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.
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.
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!
Susan recently posted..Your Website – How To Attract Visitors
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?
Susan recently posted..Your Website – How To Attract Visitors
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?
Crystal recently posted..How to Live the Good Life – Part 1
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.
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.
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!
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