Articles for Sale

I came across Articles for Sale while looking for other online writing opportunities. The site which is hosted on WordPress is easy to navigate. You sign-up for a free account and must have a PayPal address. Once your account is confirmed, you can immediately post articles for sale.

I do not have a lot of articles which have not already been published but I managed to put up some on the site to see how it goes. There are 2 things worrying me though: the articles which are on the website are poorly written and full of typo errors judging from the low selling prices set by the "authors"; if you read the feedback of some buyers they are not very encouraging with some reporting spun and even translated articles. If you are a serious writer and dedicated to producing high quality content, affiliation with such a website can be detrimental to your writing credentials.

On the other hand, if you produce unique and quality articles, the site might attract good buyers. As an author, it is easy to post articles and set a reasonable fetching price that you want for your articles. There are enough categories to choose from and you don't have to wait for an approval by an editor before you can post your article. The downside to this is that your articles are not controlled for quality which is not a good sign. Personally, I prefer that an editor looks my work over to see if my writing makes sense and to catch all those typo errors I might have missed.

I will give this site a bit of time to see if there are improvements to their process of submission, that is, put in place an editing and authenticity check. I did see some articles sold but so far, I have not come across any forum discussing author feedback on the site.

ClickWorker

A lot similar to CloudCrowd, Clickworker pays you for research, translating and writing tasks. The site claims to have more than 74,000 workers across the world. To qualify as a Clickworker, you have to pass several assessments which will grant you credentials to do certain types of work. These tests are: English text, POI address and verify address research.

I found the tests easy and they were reviewed and approved rather quickly with a corresponding grade point. Retakes are also possible and if you want to increase you scores even if you achieved the minimum score, your dashboard will show the next dates when you can take them.

However, I see no significant tasks for workers. Most of the tasks at the moment are on finding and verifying urls worth €.07-09. The writing tasks are also not plentiful at € 0.35 for texts less than 50 words. However, for all tasks, sufficient allowance of up to 2 hours for research and 3 hours for text writing is given. It is not like you are on a time bind with these tasks which I find less stressful for a change.

Provided there is enough work, this is one website which might be worth pursuing. I just don't like the find url or verify address tasks because the amount of time I put in searching for the info is not commensurate with the compensation. Tasks like verifying a POI in Brazil, Spain are really bothersome and difficult. And, if the work is not correctly done, your assessment score also goes down. Each work is graded and you lose points for every mistake.

Payment is sent through a European bank account or Paypal for those living outside of Europe. The threshold is at € 10 but since there is not a lot of jobs available to English-speaking workers, this can take a long time to achieve.

Update: Clickworker announced all completed work will be "payable" after 7 days. I assume the threshold still applies but wonder what is different about this "change"?

Latest Update: There are 3 available special qualifications tests as a Spanish, French or English website usability tester. The pay is € 1. I have not yet received feedback on the practice test I did several days back.

Still another update: I take back what I said about taking a long time to reach payout. I managed to reach payout due mainly to text writing tasks. I even got one for € 6,50 for a 600-700 word article. There are also short product description tasks similar to what CloudCrowd has on its "available work" tab. POI research addresses are up again.

Payment methods: Clickworker lives to its promise of paying between the 7th and 8th of each month. Or was it the 6th? Anyway, I received my payment on the 8th of June via PayPal and I am happy that the work I did on that website has not gone to waste. I could even print my own invoice to track my earnings better.

In addition, I was experiencing technical glitches in text writing assignment; the keyword counter is going bonkers and I just emailed support for these issues. My point is, the Help Desk responds quickly to any issue you want resolved or clarified.

CloudCrowd is Awesome

The first time I signed up with this company, I was not really serious and tried to do the test in a hurry. I failed, of course. That was a translation test and could not be taken again (unfortunately). To those who are not familiar with CloudCrowd, there are some daily tasks you can do on the site. You need a Facebook account, grant access to CC through your FB account and you're in. Well, not quite as you have to pass several ratings or assessment if you want to work on premium tasks. I was brave enough to take the general writer English test and even luckier to pass it. This means that I could do premium writing tasks worth $ 10 a piece with the possibility of a bonus - $ 1.25. The rates for all tasks change daily but I think the tasks are well paid. If you are fast in churning short, high quality articles(most were medical articles) then this is not a bad earning potential. Unfortunately, the write a premium article tasks are dwindling or has come to an end. There will be other tests though and I plan on taking them to improve my credentials. I like the site and concept of CC even though the standards are quite high - your article or work can be rejected if you have a spelling mistake or did not follow the serial comma style. As a strict policy, CC makes sure to provide quality output. Satisfied clients will mean more contracts for CC and then, more tasks for us workers.

So in a way, I love how this site sets high standards for the quality of my work, the fast response in the support forum for help, technical issues and even appeals on rejected work. The nicest gesture of goodwill to its workers is that CC pays daily by Paypal. I do not have to wait till next pay day to get my money. I work today and I get paid tomorrow. What could be better than that?

Update: I recently passed the English Writer Marketing Test. It was reviewed by Admin. It takes the staff around 2 days to return a graded test. I have not yet starting doing jobs on this area because I want to read the new structures and guidelines which were recently released. There are plenty of write product descriptions tasks and more will be posted for the write a premium article task.

Update 03/05/11: There are plenty of jobs right now on CloudCrowd such as review product descriptions, write product description, review write article press release, write article, write blog post, edit and format resumes just to name a few. The drawback is these tasks require credential and credibility of between 40 to 59 for writing tasks and from 65 to 80 for reviewing and editing marketing and English written tests. The ability to do these tasks depends on the credibility and credentials with the exception of a write article tasks for marketing writers.

In addition, there are several translation jobs which are to be translated from English to French (the highest one I saw so far at $20 a piece), Korean and Arabic

I have not been doing any CC tasks in the last three weeks which means that I can only qualify for a few of these paying assignments. I think the best option is to read the official forums and threads on each specific assignments to know the basic guidelines and expectations from the author. The forums also provide insights on what could be done better, where to appeal and the like. There are also specific guidelines for each assignment so you will know what to expect. I don't want to start writing when I have not fully understood what is expected of me. Doing simple tasks will give my credibility a boost and hopefully, assist in getting higher paying jobs. Otherwise, the earning potentials here in CC have more than doubled since I last worked on writing tasks. That was three weeks ago.