Text Broker - Get Paid For Writing

Textbroker is a company that puts clients in need of content together with writers.

Textbroker has a pretty neat piece of software that automates a lot of the daily processes. The system works like this.

As an Author You Need To:

1. Register (simple) then choose you password.
2. You will be asked for a 300-350 word sample article.
3. You will be rated (1-5)
4. Once approved, you go to assignments/show orders and choose a category your familiar with.
5. Review the requests and follow the instructions.
6. The requester can accept, reject or ask for a revision of your article.
7. When accepted, the payment is put into your account with textbroker.
8. Payment requests ($10.00 min) - all requests are processed on Thursday night, dispersed to your paypal account the next day.
9. Your articles will be reviewed by a human proof reader from textbroker in the future. This is an ongoing verification of your work.

You will need to send in a W9 form before they will pay out any earnings. Now that you know what textbroker is, lets find out how much can you make?

Back in October Textbroker increased their prices charged to publishers. This increase and changes Google made to their algorithm has all but dried up orders in the 2 and 3 star categories.

Textbroker has fatefully fell behind in reviewing authors articles - I'm talking about 3 to 4 months. This hinders authors from having any chance for advancement from the category their at to a higher level. I really don't know what sort of internal problems they are having, but a lot of authors are getting tired of the wait and moving to other writing mills.

What I found out is you have to contact them, which will prompt an evaluation of your articles. What I also found is they are still stuck in their ridiculous ratings for punctuation errors. They completely ignore content and grade on minor punctuation errors. The move from level 3 to level four is an increase of 4/10 of one cent - not enough to demand perfect punctuation.

Positive Attributes - keeping things in perspective, we want to share a few ways to use textbroker to your advantage. Even though the pay is ridiculous for what they want, you can learn some things from the editors ratings. We all can learn a little more each day and using the editors feedback will help reduce grammatical errors. It won't be perfect, but anything to make you better is a good thing. This leads us to our next point - say Thank You. Anytime a publisher gives your article a good rating, thank them. Send a short message acknowledging you've seen their rating, thanking them for it and even mention you hope the article helps their project. I have picked up a few clients that has helped me move on from textbroker, and the pay is much better too.

The take away here is: use textbroker as a stepping stone for better things down the road. Making a few bucks here and there, plus improving your writing style is a good thing. You will find that in the real world minor punctuation errors, which most people never detect, is not as important as compelling content. You will get paid a lot more for the quality of your content than you will for misplacing a comma here or there.

Don't plan on getting rich with this system, but $300.00 to $600.00 a month is realistic if you write on a consistent schedule.

The average writer will probably be rated a 2 or 3 at the beginning. If you're proficient in punctuation and grammar then you could be rated a 4, and being rated a 5 requires passing a 10 question test along with a written exam.

Payment Per Rating

level 2 - .7 cents per word

level 3 - 1 cent per word

level 4 - 1.4 cents per word

level 5 - 5 cents per word

Direct Requests - there will be times when the requestioner likes your work, so they have the option to do what is called a "direct order." A direct order bypasses the main order board and comes right to you. You can set you own price-per-word in your profile; the default is 1.5 cents per word if you leave that field blank.

Why would they pay more? One reason is - they like your work. Another reason could be - they want a quick turnaround.

Don't Get Discouraged By the "one penny per word"

Most people start at level 3 and getting paid $5.00 for a 500 word article gets old fast.

As mentioned, even at this rate you can still make a few hundred dollars per month - lets do the math.

The majority of level 3 requests are articles in the 300-500 word range. So lets say you average $4.00 per article (400 words) x 5 articles a day, that = $600.00 a month.

Now, realistically writing at this pace for 30 days straight is hard, and add to this the fact that requests for articles in categories you like can be limited - well, that limits your potential to hit the $600.00 a month target at the level 3 price tag.

100 Word Snippets - you'll find that there are 100-200 word requests which we call "snippets." These requests can fill those times when larger article requests are limited.

I've done these many times on subjects I knew nothing about. If you know the subject matter then it only takes a few minuets to write a snippet. If you have to do a little research on the subject then it may or may not be worth your time.

It's an easy way to add a buck or two to your income total and some are actually fun to do.

Paid to Learn

Consider textbrokers as a paid to learn experience.

It's not a bad experience to get paid and at the same time learn how to write better and deal with customers. Each article you write is evaluated by textbroker and the opportunity is given to the requester to do the same.

Textbroker will evaluate each of your articles and give it a rating. This means you can move from level 3 to level 4 if you improve your writing skills, but this also means you can go from a level 3 down to level 2 if you get sloppy.

The last question we have to answer is - is textbroker a legitimate system?

From all indications it is. I have submitted about 30 articles and all were accepted and paid. The interesting thing is come to find out their U.S. office is only five miles from my house. So how better to judge the operation than to visit their office.

I dropped off my W9 form at their office and had the chance to ask a few questions. The said textbroker was started in 2005 originating out of Germany. They then opened an office in 2008 for the U.S. operations.

There are six employees who basically look at the articles after the requester accepts them. They also evaluate the new authors and assign them a ranking.

It was also mentioned that they will soon be opening an office in France. So, seeing the office and talking to the manager at textbroker, it certainly looks like a legitimate business.

Conclusion

I know a penny a word is not much, but remember their system has a feature where you can get "direct orders" and you can set your price higher for clients who like your work.

Plagiarism - If you read the comments of this hub you'll see some people complain about plagiarism at textbroker. Listen, even at a penny a word you're getting paid to write and the TOS at textbroker clearly state you are a "ghostwriter" for their clients.

There are publications where you get paid and retain the credit for the article, textbroker is not one of them.

Content Mill - most clients at textbroker go there for cheap content. Now that Google has raised the bar on content marketing, people are looking for better quality content so there are more requests for level 4 writers.

Easy to Use and Reliable - Textbrokers system is easy to use, and once your article is approved, the transfer of funds is instantaneous. There are no surprises, the requester generally lists their instructions and they can also request certain keywords be used within the article. The price is set upfront, so if you choose to accept the assignment. you know exactly how much you will get paid.

If you're looking to make a few hundred bucks a month from writing and want to do it on your own time, then textbroker is worth a look. They do the money transfers on Friday, so you have to activate your payoff request by midnight Thursday.