Textbroker is one of those sites that tends to fly under the radar as a great place to work. It’s not as small as some of the bigger sites would have you believe and they have a very loyal client base. This comes from hiring great writers at a reasonable price to complete assignments quickly.
Textbroker makes it possible to not only claim assignments from the job board but to also set your own price for private clients that contact you through the system. This is a great system that allows you to make more money from repeat clients.
Getting Started with Textbroker
It’s pretty simple to get started. Hop over to Textbroker.com and sign up. You will fill out a standard form with your name, address and phone number. They will also have you fill out a tax form. You can wait until you are ready to be paid but you should get it out of the way now to avoid delays later.
Once you sign up you can apply for writing privileges. This is a standard writing sample based on a topic that they choose. It’s important to write this as though your salary depended on it because it does; your sample will be rated and the better the rating, the more you get paid per assignment.
Textbroker claims that they will respond within a week but in reality I have never seen them take more than 48 hours. Even that was rare as most people have their samples reviewed and rated within 12 hours.
Setting Up Your Profile
Textbroker has one of the most in-depth profiles of any site. This is great because it gives potential clients a huge amount of information about you and makes you very marketable. While you are waiting for Textbroker to review your sample, set up your profile.
On the profile page you will see six tabs. Each tab has a list of questions. Just fill them out and hit the save button. You will find topics ranging from places you have visited to your language skills. You can also include additional writing samples.
One place to pay attention to in particular is under the General Information section of your profile. Here you can set your own price per work for private clients. Be sure to set a reasonable and fair price. By default, Textbroker will set it at the same rate as your review but they will not change it once you have set the price.
Figuring Out the Dashboard
The Textbroker Dashboard is outstanding but can be a little confusing to the new user. Just trust me that after a few days you will be navigating your way around it like a pro; it’s really not as hard as it first looks.
When you open the Assignments page you find a huge warning…which I personally think they should eliminate. It’s a little insulting to be constantly warned about creating original work. It can be annoying but just ignore it. The good outweighs the bad here.
Beneath that you will find a search box that is at first confusing. It’s actually a fantastic way to sort through the work and find what you are looking for either from certain clients or certain topics. Just ignore it your first day and look under it.
That is where you find the open assignments. Once you have been rated you can claim any assignments that are highlighted. If you are rated in at a level 4 (out of 5) then you can claim assignments from levels 2 through 4. The only assignments closed to you are the level 5 ones.
Once you find a topic that looks interesting and has available assignments, click on it. You will be taken to a list of the open assignments in that topic and can look them over. When you find one that you would like more information on, click it.
This is where Textbroker outshines every other site: While you are looking over the assignment no one else can look at it or claim it. You have 10 minutes to make your decision. If you accept it then you can write it. You have 24 hours to write it after claiming it. If you don’t want to write it then it goes back into the assignment pool for someone else.
Direct Orders
After you have established yourself, you will find that you often get repeat business from clients. Because Textbroker doesn’t hide clients and writers from each other, the clients can send a direct order to a writer that they like working with. These direct orders will not appear in the general assignment board but instead be sent directly to you. You will be notified through both email and on your Dashboard that you have a direct order.
Team Orders
Working with teams is a unique aspect of Textbroker that I haven’t seen anywhere else. You apply to and join a team of writers based around a particular topic. Then the clients contact the team and the team divides up the assignments. This can be very lucrative and is especially good for new writers because once you are accepted into the team you are given equal status and pay to more established writers.
While it should go without saying that getting into a team requires great writing and staying in the team requires hard work, I’ll mention it anyway. Team writing is not an easy way to make good money it’s just an easier way of finding good clients.
The Downside to Textbroker
You knew that there had to be a downside. Strangely enough, it’s in the actual writing of the article. The problem is that once you have accepted an article you have 24 hours to write it. While that is not a problem in and of itself, while you have that article selected you cannot select another article. You write one, submit it and then choose another one. There is no filling up a queue and then writing them. This has the advantage of leaving work available in the assignment pool but it has the disadvantage of you having to miss out on an article that someone else claimed while you were writing. Direct orders and Team Orders are exempt from this.
Writing an Article
The writing platform at Textbroker is not great. There is really no way to sugarcoat it and make it seem better than it is. It’s basic, has no automatic save and is honestly one of the worst out there. I highly recommend copy and pasting from word or at the very least employing the Lazarus browser add-on. At least then if there is a problem your work isn’t lost.
You write the article into their form and hit the submit button. That’s pretty much it and that also essentially describes the text area; it’s just a big box. It’s really not so bad once you get used to it but the problem is that most writers write for several sites so it’s hard to get used to it when you see better formats on a constant basis. The good news is that Textbroker is always improving their site and tends to listen to the writers. So there is hope for this to improve.
The Editing Process
I always mention the editing process because I have found over the years that a bad editor can completely ruin a site for writers. This is not a problem at Textbroker. Every editor I have personally worked with there has been wonderful. There is a lot of back and forth between the writer, editor and client. This inclusion of the client in the process makes the entire process much better, faster and more enjoyable.
After your article is submitted it will go through the editor and then be passed on to the client. The entire process takes between an hour and 4 days. After that the article is sent for payment on the next payment date. You have 24 hours to complete any edits but you are not prevented from accepting new articles during the process.
The Rating System
The initial review of your article will give you a base rating. For example, if you rate the average of a 3 then you can only choose assignments from the 2 and 3 star categories. They don’t pay as well as the 4 and 5 star ratings. This is easy enough to change. Every article you write is rated. Your rating is the average of the last 5 articles that you have written. If you have consistently high ratings, ask to be moved to a higher category. Your rating can also be lowered if your reviews are consistently poor. There is room to move at Textbroker. As your writing improves so do your opportunities.
Payment
Payment is made weekly but you have to go in and click the payment button. This is simple enough and is accessed through your account page. Just click the payoff button and you are done. Payment is through Paypal and Textbroker pays the fees.
