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In this series, we personally test traditional online freelance marketplaces to share first-hand experiences and honest assessments of marketplaces and resulting jobs, as many freelance writers turn to these outlets to find writing gigs. You can read all the posts in the series here.
This week, I tried Amazon Mechanical Turk. Mechanical who? Why, Mechanical Turk. Yeah, the name doesn’t make any sense to me either.
Amazon Mechanical Turk’s tagline is, “Artificial Artificial Intelligence.” They act as a middle-man to website owners and workers. On Mechanical Turk you can find HITS (which are what the individual jobs are called) that entail doing transcription work, labeling photos, and writing blog posts and articles.
Now before, in the first paragraph, when I said I “tried” Amazon Mechanical Turk this week, I lied a little. I should have said I tried to try but then got physically ill and threw up a little in my mouth and decided that trying to try to do anything on Amazon Mechanical Turk is stupid.
Once Upon a Time….
I didn’t always feel that way. When I first started out I used Amazon Mechanical Turk. After earning a whopping $5.65 by labeling photos for someone I realized the site was not for me, but felt that it was a good option for people with a little extra time on their hands who needed some cash. Having gone through many embarrassingly poor patches during childhood, I know what it’s like when you need money now and Amazon Mechanical Turk is not the worst way to get it.
When I logged in to my old account yesterday I thought that I would take some writing HITS so that I could tell you how much I earned and give you tips and stuff. Turns out it was way easier and less time consuming than I thought it would be.
Freelance Writing Tips for Using Amazon Mechanical Turk
Don’t use Amazon Mechanical Turk.
Okay, A Little More Detail…
The first writing HIT I found was for a 400 word article for $1.55. Did you get that? $1.55. Not only was the pay bad, but the instructions for SEO and formatting were about 139 words long. I mean, it would take me 30 minutes just to go through this person’s never-ending checklist to make sure I had even written the article according to spec. This person is so delusional he’s probably holding coal up his ass crack to try and squeeze out diamonds.
So I moved on to a different HIT thinking that this was just a fluke. Found one to write three 200 word or more posts on Easter baskets for $3.00. Now, before you point out that this is actually more per word than the one above, consider this—the guidelines/instructions for doing this gig were 645 words long! 645! WTF?
The Upshot
Many inexperienced freelancers out there will take this information and say—“See, freelance writing rates are going down. Content mills like Demand Studios are really the best way to go. They even try to provide health benefits and grants for creative pursuits!” The sad part about these inexperienced freelancers is that they have the key to unscrambling the low paying rates right there in their statement and they don’t even realize it.
Content mills and low paying webmasters like those who post their gigs on Amazon Mechanical Turk are losing in the money-making game and they know it. So they either start paying less (in the case of Amazon Mechanical Turk webmasters) to try and eke out a little profit from their Adsense or affiliate sales or they try crazy gimmicks like offering non-insurance health insurance and token grants to fill their factory of writers (in the case of Demand Studios) so that they can get more and more and more content to try and maintain earnings or get a small increase. Freelancers who spend their time finding private clients understand that, if anything, rates are going up for web writers–not down. They also understand that the contraction of the print industry it not a harbinger of doom for all writers, it’s an indication of the popularity of online content–which means even more opportunity for high paying web content writing gigs.
If you are a good writer, don’t get sucked in to these sites. Set your own sites a little higher, market yourself, and define your career and your possibilities yourself—don’t let someone else do it for you.
Oh and, yes, Amazon Mechanical Turk is an offshoot of the real Amazon.com–but they are just a middle man. I wouldn’t blame them for the rates.
Related posts:
- Amazon Out of Stock
- What Amazon and UPS Taught Me About Customer Service
- Testing Traditional Marketplaces to Help You Find the Next Step in Your Career
- SEO Firms and Freelance Bloggers: Unlikely Allies?
About the Author: Yolander Prinzel
Browse all posts from this author.
TAGS: freelance marketplace, freelance writer jobs, freelance writers, freelance writing, Freelance Writing Jobs, income streams, make money online, Testing marketplaces, textbroker, web content writing, work from home, Writers Markets
First, HORRIBLE place to find work. If anyone out there is on a quest to find the bottom of the barrel, just head on over to AMT and call it a day. I’m more prone than many (okay, most) to see viable options for some writers in low-paying markets, but seriously…
Second, I wish this was true:
“Content mills and low paying webmasters like those who post their gigs on Amazon Mechanical Turk are losing in the money-making game and they know it.”
Unfortunately, I don’t think it is. Many AMT job-posters and others trying to snag content at those rates are losing, but many are winning. Some are winning big. I think that’s going to continue until (a) Google gets its shit together with respect to how it ranks content or (b) we see a larger movement away from traditional search on the part of the Internet users.
Third, WORST name ever. Why would anyone want to sign up to play the role of some cut-rate Turkish robot? Doesn’t the very name of the site make you feel weirdly dehumanized?
I think you are right Carson, and I should have clarified that those who are still making money see the writing on the wall re: Google Adsense revenue changes and ranking and are trying to beef up their content NOW. I think unless they figure out a new way to monetize the articles they get, they are going to have a big problem in the future.
Absolutely. The writing is on the wall. Google can only function profitably to the extent that it successfully brokers the exchange of information to the end user.
The shortcomings in the algorithm and the “creativity” of those doing business online are clearly (and inappropriately) rewarding sub-standard content. At some point, those polluted searches turn people off from using Google.
I think it’s safe to say that Google will try do whatever it can to fix the problem (or at least to fix it enough to secure it’s own profitability and growth). They know that they’re losing many “ahead of the curve” users to other methods of finding quality content and information. The number is undoubtedly small as an overall %, but it’s an indicator that things could get bad down the road.
If they can’t get the job done, someone else will. If that doesn’t happen in terms of old school search, it will just happen via some of the various social media and folksonomic alternatives.
Right now, it makes sense for many webmasters to gather up as much cheap-ass content as they can, because they can experience some positive ROI over a short period. Eventually, evolution will probably slice that model’s throat.
Once it’s bled dry, many of those freelancers will disappear. Some will struggle to move on to “whatever happens next.” Some of us will already be there.
That’s one reason why I think even those of us (like me) who take a slightly more positive perspective on the idea of working in lower paying markets should probably do a much better job of explaining that the cheap joints can be a decent way of generating cash when you need it (as your post pointed out, there are times when you need money and you can’t be picky), but that it’s not a tenable long-term business model.
When I had a social-media expert tell me in an interview that she teaches her clients to use AMT to get 25-CENT articles, I was floored. I consider AMT to be prime fodder for my pressure campaign to embarrass portals out of business: http://caroltice.com/blog/27?PHPSESSID=b210f92e0b825b6ee866b910b04b51aa
Amazon is a public company…tempted to stand up at their next annual meeting and ask why they have this sweatshop site offering these rates. Do they need this negative PR? I don’t think so.
GREAT article, Yolander.
Carol Tice
http://www.caroltice.com
http://Twitter.com/TiceWrites
Make a Living Writing blog: The 7 Habits of Highly Paid Freelance Writers: http://www.caroltice.com/blog/39
Oh my lord. Yolander, thank you. Thank you for the biggest laugh I’ve had all week! Hilarious account of a decidedly un-funny job “offer.”
The strangest part of this is the fact that the client could’ve saved himself a buck and some change if he’d taken his extensive list of requirements, cut it in halve, and called it an article.
People who want to take a stab at some form of writing will take these jobs. People with established careers and the ability/willingness to market themselves know it’s horse pucky.
Personally, I’ve seen the opposite occurring in terms of rates. I’ve had clients coming back, stating they went cheaper and couldn’t match the quality to the lower price. I’m also seeing some who originally post these slave-wage jobs actually considering writers who demand higher rates. There are a lot of content mills jumping on board the same leaky business model. It may already be starting that the point of saturation has been reached and that fewer will need these thrown-together articles.
IMO, I think AMT works best for developing nations where 5 dollars for an hour worth of work is a lot of money: Exploitation 2.0
Oh gawd, did I really type “cut it in halve?” Shudder! Sorry. My mind was going in two different directions. I blame Robutussin.
“Threw up a little in my mouth”=freaking HILARIOUS! Thanks you Jenn!
Lol, sort of.
I’d totally forgotten about AMT – Carson is right – it’s a horrible name, and probably racist to boot.
But that aside, I’d forgotten it because it’s so horrid.
The sense that the writing is on the wall re seo I share… it can’t go on like it is much longer or Google et al become mostly useless.
Those of us who’ve been online awhile have watched the slow change… search engines have both gotten better and worse. We’ve had to constantly alter our own search methods; google’s algorithms have gotten better and better. I gather they have skipped keyword stuffed pages for awhile now.
It will be interesting to see how it’s working in a year, and even further down the road.
A
First of all, take a few seconds and Google Mechanical Turk to find the meaning of the name. It makes complete sense.
Second, I do writing work on MTurk. I live in the US and desperately need money. So yeah, I will do 200 words for $1.70 and be grateful I’m getting paid. Otherwise, I don’t eat! I’ve tried freelance writing sites and it’s really hard to get started. I have no track record, I don’t have knowledge that is required by quite a few of the requesters or the time to learn enough about the subject, and many, MANY freelancers have been working longer than me and get the job easily instead of me.
Low wages on MTurk, or nothing. I’ll go with MTurk, and wish for higher pay while knowing it won’t happen.
You’re right Laura. With that attitude, it definitely won’t happen. If you really want better, you’ll stop making excuses (you gave plenty right here) and you’ll go out there and improve your career. Anyone who can construct a sentence can do better than MT. The only thing holding you back is you. That’s true for any freelancer who blames others for their choice to settle instead of working for better like the rest of us did. It isn’t easy. But until you’re prepared to do that, MT is probably where you’ll stay I’m sorry to say.