Hey Textbroker Writers, Did You Know About This?

 Last week, I was doing the research thing for a new page on this site and after a while, my fingers had a mind of their own. This happens to all of us when work slows down, even when you belong to a few specialized writing teams (as of today, I belong to 16 but maybe three have been active over the past couple of months). Yep, this is what a lot of us content writers deal with.

And if you don't belong to a team, the work has really slowed over the past few months. Not counting jobs that pay $1< either. While this is unfortunate, it's becoming common with a lot of content writing companies that pay upfront. So if you're wondering how to improve your chances of getting more work, here's what I learned.

The TB Testing Phase

Ok, so TextBroker has said since Day 1 that taking the 5-Star Advancement Test is the way for you to get better-paying assignments. Not so fast...this is ancient history. Now, in order to get into the 5-Star ranking, you have to pass with a score of 80% or better AND get a perfect review on your last two accepted jobs.

However, do they really give ratings on all work submitted? As someone who's been with them on and off since 2009, I'd say there's a definite difference.  After many attempts, I finally passed the test earlier this year, and no, I'm still a 4-Star writer. And some of the criticisms of my submissions have been minor.

"Don't mention that a property is in a nice neighborhood." - But that's what the description has and Neighborhood Experts writers are supposed to go by the text first, then property pics.

"After the HTML coding, your word count was short of the required minimum." - OK but we're not compensated for having this skill either.

So this is an example of the few-and-far-between critiques I get every so often. I have no rejections and I only got downgraded once and that was early on. However, this is what I learned after retaining my current ranking for years.

The New TB University

If you're like me where you're a decent writer that gets few revision requests, passed the original test, and gets regular invites to join specialty writing groups - here's something new (or better, what I recently discovered).

Ok, so you click the 5-Star Advancement link on the navigation bar and you see your congrats message. At the end is a link to Textbroker University. When you click on it, below is what you get instead.

Soooo, what to do, you ask. Well, getting back to those mindful fingers of mine, I ran across the other Textbroker University. Yep, this Google site shows an Advanced Test link with many grammar mechanic modules. Also, the purpose of completing this step is to "expedite the review" of a recent submission.

Final Thought

Since Textbroker jobs are an emergency change situation for me, I have no say as to whether this is a good or bad thing. Especially in an age where AI is everywhere and nowhere at the same darn time. Yeah, certain jobs that come in the tens or hundreds now disappear in minutes. Even in my tech bootcamp, AI is strongly encouraged. We'll see how long this lasts.