Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Area for content rejection questions.

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weagle87
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:39 pm

Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by weagle87 »

It seems that working on the political topics (private writer pool) is destroying my rejection ratio. I don't know if editors are more critical about politics, if some new editors are tougher, or if a bunch of new writers are tiring the existing editors out.

I'm not saying that the edits were not needed, but they seemed like very nuanced issues. I'm sure that similar small errors (or preferences) got by editors all the time when I wrote about landscaping or decorating. I don't know if it is the newsy style that makes the standards higher or a political viewpoint (that the buyer wants hyped) that skews the editors to be harsh.

Whatever the reason, I'm posting here because $30 for 500 words is not worth ruining my reputation over. However, if no one else has experienced excessive rejection (50% and up) and I'm just losing my touch, then I need to know that, too. I used to have almost all of my articles accepted the first time. I'm considering asking to be let off the team. Thoughts?
Judith
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Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by Judith »

Yes I am having the same problem. One article returned 5 times. One rejection was to remove a comma and another to put the comma in. It has been very frustrating.
Isabelnewth
Posts: 304
Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:15 am

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by Isabelnewth »

I had 6 articles to do for this request. Two were accepted, three were rejected and one hasn't yet been reviewed.

I submitted two of the articles to the category 'children' and four to 'current affairs'.

The two that went to 'children' were both rejected. The edits were fair but very stringent for the $30 price tag.

Of the four that went to 'current affairs', two were accepted and one rejected. The edits for the one that was rejected were not all that onerous compared to the 'children' rejections which were of the 'errors throughout' ilk.

I am waiting to hear about my re-submissions.

I think that the two accepted current affairs articles could easily have been rejected if they had been edited by the same standards as the 'children' ones.

So either the ones submitted for 'children' went to a fussier editor than the others or....I am imagining things!

-
weagle87
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:39 pm

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by weagle87 »

Okay, so I'm not crazy. And while the edits really did produce a more quality piece, some of them did seem excessive for the price. I'm going to give this some more thought. Thanks for the input. :-)
evaku
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue Jun 14, 2011 2:46 am

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by evaku »

I'm not having too many issues this time. I had one rejection with a LOT of comments, but once I fixed those up I was accepted, and my other article was accepted also. However, last time was a nightmare! 12 of my titles were chosen and I remember I had about 2 days to do them because I had family coming, and about half of them were sent back for edits, some of them pretty big ones too! My rejection ratios with these projects are definitely worse than my overall 94% approval rating!
weagle87
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:39 pm

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by weagle87 »

Thanks evaku,

If it's happened to you, then I'm feeling a little better. But I still am not sure what exactly to do. It's fun to write titles and get automatic money. However, it's not very much money, and it could keep us off of more lucrative teams. Then again, they may consider us team players for jumping through the hoops.
Isabelnewth
Posts: 304
Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:15 am

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by Isabelnewth »

Rejections are always horrid but these requests are worth it for me because:
You can choose your own topic/title
No key words, which beats the energy ones last year where sometimes you had to produce some very strange constructions several times per article
If you are careful with the topics you suggest, it's fairly easy to do 500 words, compared to 750 for the energy requests which is a real stretch when you have to do 10 of them on the same subject, all with the same odd key phrases.
$30 for 500 words isn't great but it isn't much different from $50 for 750 which last years energy ones earned for a lot more grief in my case. One time I had rejection after rejection on that project for things which had been quite acceptable before, so I hope that this is a similar blip.

I wasn't as careful as I could have been with my last request because I wanted to get them in before the end of the month and get paid...that didn't work very well.

When I get all the re-submitted ones back as rejects I will maybe change my tune.

And I'd be interested to know if anyone doing this request has had their articles purchased yet....
weagle87
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:39 pm

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by weagle87 »

No, they haven't been purchased yet, and the energy ones were hard. But they did pay for Christmas last year.

I'm with you on the being able to choose our own topics. That makes it more fun. But I don't enjoy writing five titles per topic for 20 or so topics and then having only 6 topics chosen. At least textbroker pays you to write titles as if they were an assignment (which they are). I guess it's time to make the old pro/con list and compare. And I do not mean to say I want to work for textbroker. I just can't do that anymore.
Isabelnewth
Posts: 304
Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:15 am

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by Isabelnewth »

Yes, the alternative titles are a real pain. But I only submitted one title per proposal initially, then the other 4 just for the accepted titles. Maybe I misunderstood what was intended but it worked, this time anyway. And I was only asked for 10 proposals in the first place. But 20X5: 100 titles on spec is an exhausting thought. Specially as we were asked to make them Scary!
ReneeF
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Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by ReneeF »

Judith wrote:Yes I am having the same problem. One article returned 5 times. One rejection was to remove a comma and another to put the comma in. It has been very frustrating.
I'm having the same problem with apostrophe, hyphenation, and word choice issues. put it in, take it out, put it in.. sigh i had two flat out rejected for "word choice" (wait isnt this a personal style issue?) and removed from the system, no chance to edit at all.
Isabelnewth
Posts: 304
Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:15 am

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by Isabelnewth »

The ones I had to edit were accepted and the other one got rejected then accepted on re-submission, so four needed one edit and two were accepted first time round. Not great, but bearable if they are actually purchased which remains to be seen! My style isn't much like the example given in the request so I do have my doubts....I did quite enjoy doing them, so I hope this customer buys and stays around..things have been pretty lean recently.
Lysis
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Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by Lysis »

Just wanted to commiserate a bit. Reading this thread jinxed me. lol 5 rejections in a row. ouch It's been a bad week for me this week opposed to the previous 2 weeks that rocked for me. Ugh. All 5 were the major wordiness and clarity rejections. I know everyone complains about the comma and basic rejections, but mannnn I'd so rather those than the "this sucks you gotta go over the whole thing again" rejections.
ReneeF
Posts: 204
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2014 2:52 pm

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by ReneeF »

Lysis wrote:Just wanted to commiserate a bit. Reading this thread jinxed me. lol 5 rejections in a row. ouch It's been a bad week for me this week opposed to the previous 2 weeks that rocked for me. Ugh. All 5 were the major wordiness and clarity rejections. I know everyone complains about the comma and basic rejections, but mannnn I'd so rather those than the "this sucks you gotta go over the whole thing again" rejections.

i kinda have the wind knocked out of my sales (pun intended).. and a 50-article request deadline coming up.. even i post to other catagories i get the same "word choice errors" not wordiness, not word misuse, not commas (though a few have come back with comments about hyphens and commas) its "word choice errors" and i have no idea what that means. Its just a blank reject. many are outright deleted without a chance to edit. no clue what's going on.. i thought editors were.. you know.. editors.. not article nazi's.

okay rant and horrible grammar comment over.. back to focusing on the project and trying to put the weird and soul crushing comments out of my head.
Lysis
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Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by Lysis »

lol sometimes, I'm so burnt on the day's writing that pressing the shift key is too much to capitalize the "i." LOL I totally get where you're coming from there.
ReneeF
Posts: 204
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2014 2:52 pm

Re: Anyone experiencing rejection on those political topics?

Post by ReneeF »

i've ben editing the same 5,000 word article over and over for two weeks for this CC request.. and the editor keeps saying that it isnt his job to edit. and post it closer to deadline.. UGH. i have 49 more for that same deadline.. i'm trying to guess the customer needs early on. LOL.. so yes, very very burned out.
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