How to Become a Writer with Textbroker
When I started writing online nine months ago, I was terrified. I was so afraid that my writing would not be good enough and that I would be rejected or ridiculed. I had no idea what to do or where to turn. I read a lot of advice online about where to write, but there was very little about what to write. What I found out is that writing online is easy to learn. After only nine months, it is now my full-time career.
Textbroker
When I first started, I surfed the web for places that paid for writing. I decided to try out Textbroker.com, a site that pays very little, but offers guaranteed work. That was important to me because I did not like the idea of spending a lot of time writing on article sites, maybe making only a few cents or nothing at all for my hard work. At least Textbroker was offering a few bucks for each article.
Writing for Textbroker
To get approved as an author for Textbroker, you must write a sample piece. The staff will review and rate your writing and then approve you as a writer (or not). My first piece did not go over so well and I was given a rating of “2.” This meant that I would get about $1.70 for every article I wrote, still better than pennies or nothing.
How to do Rewrites
Because I was unsure how good my writing was, I started out doing “rewrites.” You do a rewrite by taking an article and rewording it so the new article is not recognizable from the old, but they both give the same information. By taking on rewrites, I could see what style writers used and began to get an idea of how I should be writing and what I should be writing about.
After writing only five pieces or so for Textbroker, I was able to increase my rating to a “4,” which is only second to the top-level professional writers. This gave me a lot of confidence to move forward and write more, trying out original articles.
How to Write from Scratch
When you write from scratch, you have to research information at other websites and come up with your own ideas. Sometimes you even need to write the title. The buyer may give you instructions about which keywords to use, where to place them and how often to use them in the article. Although it takes a lot of time at first, once you do it a few times, you become much quicker and can write an article in about ½ hour. Although you will only make about $10 per hour that way on Textbroker, it is a great place to get started and learn the ropes.
Why You need to Move Beyond Textbroker
When you write for Textbroker, you are a “ghostwriter,” meaning you have no rights to the article and cannot claim it as your own. If you want to get paid good money for your writing, you will need to move onto revenue sharing sites so that you can build your own portfolio with your name attached to the articles. This gives you a body of “samples” to show prospective employers. I will go over how to move beyond Textbroker next time.
