Interesting Blog Post And Replies

I find myself wanting to scream "let it go!"

I doubt the site is closing because a few writers are angry at their ratings and leave. This article does sound like "they don't like me so I'm leaving". It may be textbroker has become more demanding - maybe there are enough good writers they can afford to demand more?

I can understand you finding this article and feeling better because someone else thinks as you do or had a similar experience. Reading this article....I think you've found a kindred spirit. However, that doesn't yield a paycheck...so...

He writes an entire article about the unfairness of his textbroker rating and then says the above? Isn't that getting mad and firing back?


Take a deep breath - let it go.

Okay Stephen. I've not made too many comments on your posts, but I'm going to share some stuff with you right now.

When I moved to NV from my sister's, I was moving to bumfvckarobia and had to make a living, at least for the most part online. I worked for Demand Media - same thing as textbroker. It went the same way. I am a freaking cognitive linguist and was being edited into grammatical idiocy that downgraded every piece I wrote for them to the point I was embarrassed my name was left on those things. A lot of grammatical awkwardness which they kept me down for came from writing scientific articles which they insisted on being written in active voice - much of science writing consists of passive voice, basically by sensical necessity. So they had me strapped from the get.

Next - $15 bucks an article is livable........but when they start requiring some of the over-referencing necessities, they had me putting hours of extra work trying to document every other word of the damned article. A few times I had to write the editor a response that the comment was "general knowledge" in that field of study and I'd have to get into the whole history of the subject to find where that particular current theory originated from. If it's the generally accepted theory in a field at the time, unless questioning the theory or opposing it, you shouldn't have to use referencing. It's the finer details you have to back. Can you imagine in this day and age having to reference a comment about global warming? Holy crap I think not. I can't imagine a reader in the US in 2012 not having understood what I was saying when I said "global warming issue".

Okay - so pretty soon, they start running out of quick writes and everything that I was getting was intensive time involved....and I'm sitting in the middle of nowhere with no money coming in. They then restructure - because google slapped the snot out of them, and now you need degrees for any area you write in, so I was no longer qualified to write for $20 bucks an article what I was qualified to write for $15 bucks an article, and I'm left wondering where they are finding qualified people to write their crap for that kind of money. If I were an ecological scientist I sure as hell wouldn't be writing for their corporation for 20 bucks a pop. Get real. No journalists allow - got to be freaking scientists. Okay. Kewl. I'm gone.

It's hard for me to get clients because they all want writing in genres I don't do. I don't do IM ...at all. I don't care for it, and it's flooded, I don't care what people say about "if you're good enough" - the IM field has too much choice already. I look at even experienced writer's writing and see that very few understand it as deeply even as understanding what I'm talking about when I tell them they have a missing referent.
The whole damned system is skewed right now.

Write for yourself - but write about something besides IM for cripes sakes. You have enough skill, even though I find your writing lacks flavor in the area of sense of humor I enjoy in literature. No mind - if something has the info I am looking for, I'm mature enough to read a dryer transcript than I care for. The point is.........you're good enough that you can write what you need to.........but........

You're like me. Admit it or not, you kinda suck at the marketing end of it. Perhaps you'd be better off going at it from the angle I have decided to approach my work and write for myself, but JV into the marketing...write your own advertisement according to what your marketing partner tells you is needed - then let them handle the placement of everything and the technical crap like setting a script up in kindle friendly form. Then while they worry about bringing in the bucks, you worry about your next ebook or report. Then keep your teeth white because you need to keep a focus on possibility later that you might want/need to put things on video.

Writing for content mills is extremely destructive at some levels and can only be counted on to bring in a little needed cash in a jam. Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt, burned it. Ready to go for it...................real hard, I have plans to fund. Period. Not going to depend on the man when his focus and concentration is on enslavement.