Week Three and Four and I have had Enough of Textbroker!
I have lost my desire to write for Textbroker. After spending most of my free time writing for people I don’t know and for subjects that are not interesting to me, I have decided to take the plunge and start publishing my own writing. My earnings were increasing at Textbroker only because I got better at selecting the best assignments to take, but I was still making slave wages. The week of May 14, I made a whopping $19.79. The next week I did better, $30.07, mostly because I took an assignment of 1200 words. This turned to be very time-consuming because it required a lot of research. I spent my free time for a whole weekend finding facts about the latest smart phone cameras, zzz…
Another reason I am not happy with Textbroker is that they still have not reviewed my assignments so that I can advance from a three star to four star writer. I was under the impression that this would happen on a monthly basis but I was led astray. When no review happened after a month, I searched the forum and found out many other writers were complaining about the same thing. Some four star writers had a review, then were only given a three star rating. They then continued to write at the three star level but did not receive any further reviews. Some had been writing for six months and others had completed 600 or more assignments with no reviews.
I have a theory why this is. When the site does not have enough three star writers to quickly complete the jobs that are on that level they simply give some tough reviews of four star writers so they get reduced to a three star writer. That seems logical, but it is not fair. I have done a time study of my work and I am working for about $3.00 per hour! One cent a word seems OK but most of the assignments require some form of research or reading which takes time. Imagine a 400 word summary for an article that has 3000 words. It takes time to read the article then try to include the main points into a blog of 400 words, spell check, proof read, and submit the article on the site. This would take me at least an hour and a half to complete.
I can write 1000 words an hour fairly easily, but not complete a writing assignment of 1000 words in an hour. This is why I will be spending my time publishing my own material.
The Image below is the screenshot of the cover design of my first e-book that I am currently working on. I made this myself using Word. Any help or suggestions will be appreciated. Hopefully my next post will be announcing the release of this e-book!
#textbroker #writing #publishing #makingmoneyonline
Peter Chase Wetherill 
3 de June de 2015 at 6:54
I’m sorry to hear about your poor experience, but mine has been much more pleasant. I too was a new author and was a little worried about Textbroker after reading the forums.
I left my cushy full time job and have been freelancing the last few weeks and Textbroker is the best one I’ve written for.
I was rated 4 from the start, so I don’t know about that 3-star struggle. When I first started writing for them I was worried I’d be a three and they told me I could go through Textbroker University and it’d help me become a 4 pretty much right away. They also told me they have a need for 4-star authors due to the big projects they have, so I don’t think your theory Is correct.
As a 4-star, the author services team has constantly told me about new and current projects and I’ve had more than enough work to stay busy everyday.
Every time I’ve had an issue, I just email or call Author Services and they’re extremely helpful. I recommend you doing the same rather than basing your opinion on a few orders and clients. Once you get DirectOrder clients or you’re added to managed teams, it’s pretty easy to make hundreds each week if you learn how to be sufficient.
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3 de June de 2015 at 17:06
Your reply sounds like it is right out of the Textbroker publicity section. When was your last evaluation? I went through the university and they still kept me at three stars. I’m not saying my writing is perfect but it is of a high quality. I will wait until I get an evaluation to decide to continue writing there. One cent a word is hardly worth my time!
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3 de June de 2015 at 19:01
So you’re upset that after you were evaluated AGAIN that you were still a 3-star?
That doesn’t sound like a problem with Textbroker if you ask me…
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3 de June de 2015 at 21:41
I started out at three stars and after my first evaluation in August 2014 after 10 assignments my last five evaluations were 17 out of 20 (two four star and three three star reviews). If you read my post, you will see that I started writing at other sites because of the bad pay at three stars at Textbroker. I recently started writing again at Textbroker because of the demise of the other sites and the promise that evaluations would be monthly. If my assignments are ever evaluated and I am promoted to a four star writer I don’t like the atmosphere that I could be kicked down to a three star level at any time. I don’t mean to doubt you, Chris, but you do not give me any information about you accept that you are writing at Textbroker. Do you write here on WordPress? Do you actually write for Textbroker or work for Textbroker? Are you a troll for Textbroker?
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4 de June de 2015 at 17:23
I’m a new author who is very skeptical about pretty much every online outlet to make money. I tried out Textbroker and Elance at the same time. While TB paid me less for my work, I wasted two weeks and got burned for $1200 on Elance.
So yes, I’m going to advocate for Textbroker because they’re a sure thing even if the pay isn’t as great. I called and talked to TB multiple times to discuss how they vet their clients and authors to see if they were legitimate. Textbroker has a million different ways they check for the client’s authenticity before letting them place orders all willy nilly.
The other drawback of writing for Elance is that it’s much harder to find work and build a client base. The few jobs I’ve found want to pay me RIDICULOUS wages for my time. You think TB is bad? This client I landed on Elance wants to pay me less than a cent per word for what TB is paying me almost 2 cents for.
I live a life of trying to help others, so when I come across something like this, I like to explain that it’s not all doom and gloom. There is a potential to make a lot of legitimate money on TB from my short experience with them.
Just gotta get to that 4-star level.
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4 de June de 2015 at 18:38
I do agree with you Chris in that Textbroker is an honest company and they always pay on time. The clients are not trying to scam you. I did have one problem with a client who rejected all of my revisions. At the time I didn’t know how to see their profile. When I did I saw that they had a 110% rejection rate. In other words they were using the drafts and not paying the writers or Textbroker. I blocked them! My beef is online writing sites pay is very bad. Most writers that I chat with have found private clients that pay the bills and write for sites like Textbroker in between client jobs. Some self publish e-books which can be very lucrative. I am heading in that direction. I will make a post here about my next book ideas and see what feedback I get. When or if I get to the four star level on Textbroker I will consider writing again if I need some cash.
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5 de June de 2015 at 7:06
I just wanted to pop in because I just got about 15 emails that I received ratings. 14 out of the 15 were 4-stars. The one 3-star rating I received was because I made some careless mistakes.
I’m also working on doing some ebook writing. When I decided to write full time, my friend told me that it’s a great way to make some residual income. If you write on subjects that people are interested in on a regular basis, you can develop a following and make a decent amount of money. My friend wrote an ebook last year and still makes at least $20 a month off it.
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14 de June de 2015 at 11:56
I just signed up on Textbroker, but have not yet submitted all I need. I am interested in doing some eBook writing, but don’t know the first thing about it. I think that I could certainly do something with some of my ideas. I will have to watch for you and how to work it out!
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15 de June de 2015 at 22:07
Hi Coral. The best advice for your application for Textbroker is the make sure your writing sample is perfect, specially punctuation. I didn’t do that very well last year when I applied. I did not know about their standards like FANBOY comma punctuation rules, and I didn’t even grammar check because I lost my Word program due to a computer crash. My grammar was better than my punctuation though. The pay is bad on three stars but on four stars you are opened up to group assignments which are more lucrative. Some people like Chris, who commented above, seem to do pretty well on their four star earnings.
If you are interested in e-book writing there are some good blogs out there with tons of info that have helped me. Here is one: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/ .Kindle has some free tutorial books that explain the process also. I will keep blogging on my book progress as well as my future projects.
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16 de June de 2015 at 6:38
I will revisit this with you soon. Thanks for the advice. I’ve never heard of FANBOY.
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16 de June de 2015 at 16:08
FANBOYS refers to basic punctuation of independent clauses For-And-Nor-But-Or-Yet-So. Here is a link http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm . A general rule, if any of these words are used to connect two independent clauses use a comma. Textbroker is very strict on punctuation. Watch out for when to use “than” and when to use a comma.
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