Text Broker is Now Accepting International Writers A while back, I did mention TextBroker as a paying freelance market for US writers (the original post is here: http://ravens-writing.blogspot.com/2009/01/textbroker-paying-freelance-market.html) However, yesterday I received an email letting me know that TextBroker is opening a European branch to allow native-English speaking writers from the UK, Europe, Canada and Australia to apply. The UK Text Broker site is here: http://www.textbroker.co.uk Now, being a cheeky Australian, I actually managed to join up with the US-version of Text Broker for a short time. They INSIST that writers supply a W-9 form in order to continue writing for them. I obviously can't do this, as a W-9 states that I'm an American citizen paying tax in the US. I'm not. I'm a sun-burned Aussie paying tax to the good ol' Australian Tax Office. However, I joined up and was immediately issued a 'rating 3'. Apparently everyone begins at rating 3 until they've written a few articles for clients to prove their writing levels. On the US site, it took me a week to get moved up to level 4. I reached the $200 threshold (and thus couldn't write any more without a W-9) before I could be rated again. Oops ;) Once your articles have been rated by the clients and checked by TextBroker staff, you're either moved up to a rating of 4 or 5 stars - or dropped down to a rating of 1 or 2 stars - or you might even stay where you are at 3 stars. Either way, your rating is determined by the quality of writing you submit. With the US TextBroker site, your pay rate is determined by your star-rating. The UK-version of TextBroker is exactly the same. Pay for the UK site will be in Euros via Paypal. You will need to have a balance of €10 or higher to be eligible for pay out. Payments are made on the 6th of each month. Pay Rates with TextBroker UK The pay rates for a regular 500 word article are as follows: 2 stars: €3.50 (approx $4.70 USD) 3 stars: €4.50 (approx $6.04 USD) 4 stars: €6.00 (approx $8.05 USD) 5 stars: €20.00 (approx $26.88 USD) These pay rates equate to the following amounts per word: 2 stars: 0.7 cents Euro 3 stars: 0.9 cents Euro 4 stars: 1.2 cents Euro 5 stars: 4 cents Euro So - if you're in the UK, Europe, Canada or Australia and you want to join TextBroker, visit http://www.textbroker.co.uk. They're accepting writer applications now before opening up the site to clients, but work is expected to start coming through in the next week or so. Good luck!