Zerys Review: A Writer’s Dream?
Should You Write for Zerys?
Zerys, owned by Interact Media, is merely one of many websites where writers can get paid to write. The question is: Should you write for Zerys? Read our full review and find out.
If you are familiar with the likes of TextBroker, Zerys is very similar when it comes to the way it operates, overall. It is a place where clients and writers meet to fulfill each other’s needs, as writers get paid a specified amount set by the client and Zerys ultimately takes a cut (30%, to be exact.)
One of the great things about Zerys is the fact that writers do not need to bid for a job. If you are familiar with websites like Freelancer.com, then you know how bidding for a gig generally works. It’s a double-edged sword, as you may or may not land the desired job due to the vast amount of competitors bidding for the same position.
Jobs and Clients Overview
Much like TextBroker, Demand Media Studios and others, Zerys takes care of the bidding issue simply by allowing you to claim a job before anyone else claims it. Once you grab it, it is yours to complete and (hopefully) get paid if the article is ultimately accepted.
Speaking of acceptance, this website allows you to view client profiles along with their current stats. These include how many assignments the person has approved, rejected, how many revisions he has requested, among other details.
Looking into a client’s profile before completing an assignment may be pretty usefule, as you can get an idea whether the client is too nit-picky and/or difficult to work with. In other words, if the client has a very high article rejection rate, you may want to avoid working for him unless you are sufficiently confident in your writing and research skills.
When it comes to assignments, you can also be notified when a job that matches your expertise becomes available. This gives you the opportunity to log in and grab it before anyone else does, which is always a big plus.
Website Interface
Zerys’ interface is generally a welcoming one for both writers and clients. The main board is neatly organized and it displays each available assignment appropriately. Each one tells you how many words are required, its deadline, your potential earnings and more.
Speaking of the website itself, the FAQ covers many of the questions a writer is (generally) anxious to know, including payment schedule and the availability of 1099 forms.
Payment
According to Zerys, payment is made via PayPal around the 1st and 15th of each month, and they do not send out any IRS forms to the writer.
How much can you earn with Zerys? As always, the boiler-plate answer is “it depends” on how many articles you complete and how much a client is willing to pay.
From what I’ve noticed, though, the average pay is similar to TextBroker’s. You can expect to earn anywhere from 1 to 3 cents per word for each article, on average.
Applying to Zerys
The application process takes anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes, considering you have to provide a writing sample.
These guys are relatively laid back, though, as they allow you to submit an existing sample and not necessarily an original one. If writing a new piece, you must choose from a pre-determined question shown during the application process.
Once accepted, Zerys determines your skills based on an initial rating, which in turn determines how much you can potentially make as a writer. If your rating is low, you may have a harder time finding articles as many clients tend to make them available only to more experienced people. No worries; you can increase your rating over time by completing any assignments you get your hands on.
Conclusion
Should you write for Zerys? Well, the website itself is pretty decent and organized, much like TextBroker. Unfortunately, there aren’t many clients available at this time.
That being said, applying and having an account never hurts, right? These guys may suddenly release new articles when you least expect it, so go ahead and give it a shot, by all means.
Do you already have existing experience with Zerys or other similar websites? Share your tips, thoughts and comments below.
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August 22, 2014 @ 11:50 am
This is a broker site I wasn’t aware of. The one I’m having the most success on currently is Scripted. Pay is much better than Textbroker and similar sites, but you do have to apply to specific industry niches and be approved for the specific industry in order to accept jobs related to the industry. Competition is pretty stiff in the Business industry that I’ve been approved in but I’ve still gotten quite a bit of work.
August 29, 2014 @ 1:12 pm
Thanks Kathleen. I think Scripted is a great source and it definitely beats websites like Zerys and iWriter when it comes to revenue potential.
You might want to check out CareerAddict.com as well. They claim to pay $20 for career articles.
September 28, 2014 @ 12:23 pm
Career addict are no longer accepting paid content. I received an email a few days ago informing me about the ‘official website launch’. I assume they were paying writers to build up their website content before promoting it. It was a good gig while it lasted.
August 28, 2014 @ 11:54 am
I am a five-star writer with Zerys. I have been working on that platform for just under two years so I am qualified to give a review of Zerys. The automated system works well in bringing clients and writers together. There is always plenty of work. You can see how many jobs have been assigned to writers when you click on the ‘jobs assigned’ link. A minimum of 20,000 jobs pass through the platform on a monthly basis, and there are over 5,000 freelancers.
There is a rating scale of one to five stars. A five-star writer has access to hundreds of jobs on the board while lower level writers see way less. Payment for writing ranges from 0.7cents to over 7cents per word. As usual, clients and writer have their differences over the number of stars awarded for a job.
While the system appears to be fair, I have serious concerns about certain event that take place at Zerys. These occurrences prompted me to write a review of Zerys. At times, they will give you access to jobs from one-star clients. These clients have very high rejection rates. They turn down writers’ work and ask for numerous revisions. These are extremely difficult clients for whom to work. Won’t you find it strange that you have access to thirty jobs that are only available from one-star clients? You decide whether this is a random selection or human manipulation.
Other times you will see 200+ jobs. In less than an hour, the jobs no longer appear on the board, and the count is down to 20. You will receive a system-generated email saying you have access to 230 jobs, but when you login, you have access to only 20 jobs. Of course, they tell you that customers choose which writers they want to see their work. Many times, I receive work from clients who have not even checked my profile.
Negative reviews of clients are monitored and not published. Additionally, the clients’ statistics is manipulated. For example, the rejection rate for a particular client is at 70 percent, and in less than two days, the same client has zero rejections noted in the statistics.
Of course, Zerys will have their favorite writers to whom they will show the high-paying jobs and assign the five-star clients. I am not sure how you can get on their favorite list though. If you hate the movie “Save the Last Dance,” you might get on their favored list. Here ends my review of Zerys.
August 29, 2014 @ 1:14 pm
This is an amazing overview of the site, and I can tell you’ve been there for a while. I personally tried the site a few times and completed a few articles, but there are just so many better places out there.
Sites like Zerys, TextBroker and iWriter are the types that should be used only on the side, in my opinion, while most of our efforts should go to places like Scripted and other higher-paying platforms.
Thanks for your input!
December 16, 2014 @ 11:35 pm
I agree. I worked for Zerys for about four months and found it to be yet one more exploitative and dishonest content mill. No self respecting writer should EVER work for .07 cents per word. Cerys is just another shitty content mill that devalues writers and their talent. Steer clear of Zerys.
March 6, 2015 @ 1:22 am
Forest Green, EJ and everyone else that have, or still is, working for Zerys.com: I am still a rookie on the site, but I have found a few things of interest.
First and foremost, a few days ago I wrote a comment on Zerys internal forum about the number of available assignments at the time (approximately 600), and how offensive a pay of 0.7-1.4 c per word (for an article length of 10-200), was for professional writers. My comment was never posted publicly and is now probably forever lost in time. Looking back, I can’t keep asking myself if this is why my Direct Assignments suddenly dried up?
I am constantly receiving perfect scores/ratings for my work, and my single most important problem is the number of available jobs Zerys have posted on their job board, (including such dubious assignments as: “How to get payed for my escort service using a credit card,” which offered a salary of 0.70 per word).
Any salary below 3.00 c per word is bad, but I think I will stick with Zerys for now. My rating gives me access to more jobs, and with free hours. I have the choice of never again accept anything below 2.80 c per word.
Writing is – and should be – fun! When I do get direct assignments, the agency usually takes FOREVER to review my draft and send me the money. An average of 7-14 days + is not unusual. Seriously, what is the problem?
June 2, 2015 @ 1:28 pm
I am a five-star writer on Zerys and regularly make up to 10.5 cents per word. I have never taken anything for 0.7 and currently never take less than 3.5. If you can make good connections, you can earn a comfortable amount.
June 4, 2015 @ 11:05 am
Agreed, and thanks for sharing your experiences! These places are not the greatest when working on those “default available titles.” However, they are great sources to connect with clients (leading to better-paying work).
January 6, 2016 @ 11:55 am
that is nice though it takes time to find good clients
October 28, 2014 @ 11:07 pm
For anyone considering writing for Blogmutt- think again. I wrote 3 articles for them the first week, all of which were accepted. Great! Only $8 per article, but hey, I knew what I was getting into, so I knew I wasn’t going to get rich writing for them. Then the next week rolled around, and I picked up another assignment.
They are really good in that they show you how each specific article should be written for each given company (on scales; for instance, there’s a sliding scale in one instance, going from, say, ‘fun’ to ‘formal’, and so on). The next article I wrote was to have a kind of fun, lightness to it. And so that was how I wrote it. The next day, I went to see if the article would be approved. I found out it was scheduled to be purchased by the company the next week.
Good news, I thought. Then, that same day, about 4 hours later, I went back to Blogmutt to check on a few things, and was notified then that I was suspended from writing for Blogmutt anymore (the article had been accepted by the company, only to have Blogmutt administration reject it themselves).
No article rejection; no chance for a re-write. Nothing. Of course, I tried to find out what happened there, even going so far as to writing the CEO. He had said that he agreed with their staff, merely agreeing with them that I just “wasn’t a good fit for them”. What a terrible, callous way to conduct business.
I can understand not “fitting in” perhaps. But the least they could’ve done is to have let me rewrite the article in question, or have rejected that article, and given me perhaps one more chance to submit something (with a quick note letting me know why I might not “make it” with them, style-wise).
I don’t know- maybe I’m a bit bitter about it all, but I would tell anyone that would think about writing for Blogmutt- just don’t. There are plenty of other sites out there, sites that actually respond to the writer’s concerns, and care about having a good working relationship with them.
November 20, 2014 @ 3:11 pm
Avoid content mills like the plaque, as soon as you possibly can!
The time that it takes to apply for, write for, and get paid a paltry sum; along with the myriad of problems with problem “clients,” it’s not worth your time in the long run.
$.01 – $.03 per word just helps to further degrade the professional writing field and make commodities of us all.
March 28, 2015 @ 9:25 pm
Has anyone had any experience with Skyword? They have a rather lengthy sign-up process, but they seem rather sophisticated. Still not exactly sure how it works.
March 29, 2015 @ 3:41 pm
A friend used to work with Skyword, but something awful happened along the way: Somehow they lost track of her earnings. In the end, she only got paid a partial amount of nothing at all.
Don’t let this discourage you, though, as i’m sure this incident is not the norm. Give it your best and keep us posted!
June 8, 2015 @ 7:47 am
Zerys isn’t a dream. It is a nightmare! Writings offered to me are .7 cents per word. That is ridiculous. They send me emails saying there are huge numbers of articles to be written on their site. Often, when I go there, I see 0 articles. If there are articles, the payment is an insult. Besides that, when I did write an article I waited as long as over a month for payment. Zerys is a total waste of time!
September 13, 2015 @ 12:08 pm
Just chiming in from someone who started out well with Interact Media in 2011 as a 4-5 star writer and editor, then something changed (I don’t remember now what, I do a lot of work for a lot of different industries and clients) and instead of working with the Interact Media site I was working at the Zerys site. After that, fairly quickly, my content was being rejected, communication between clients, the agency and myself was difficult to impossible and their website landing pages would often be duds. The system itself is NOT user-friendly. It finally became not worth the time and trouble.
I recently checked back in with them hoping that, this much later, it would be better. Edited a small assignment. When I’d go to save the content it kept giving a message that the deadline had passed. I just closed the window each time & kept going, as it WAS saving the changes and I figured it was just a glitch. Submitted the piece, and now I can’t find a record of it. I don’t see an easy way to access support, just posting on the forums. And when I did that it looks like it’s in a queue to be approved, not actually published.
I started going back and looking at my history and remembering the last few jobs I did for them, nothing has changed. Someone used the term ‘content mill’…that would describe Zerys perfectly.
Yep, RUN THE OTHER WAY FROM ZERYS. Unless you just enjoy a challenging morass that you may or may not get paid to wade through. Just break down the syllables of that word – more a**. Perfectly describes it.
September 19, 2015 @ 1:23 pm
Ouch, Kelley, that sounds like an awful experience. The occasional glitch happens everywhere, but you were experiencing MUCH more than that. You could suddenly see how the overall quality dropped so drastically. Are you writing for any other content mill type of site? Are you happy with it?
October 16, 2015 @ 11:59 am
Just left Zerys. Horrible company. Had to deal with them for a couple years after my biggest client shifted all their work to their platform. This client went out of business back in August without Zerys letting anyone know. Then they started saying they were working on getting some major clients but nothing ever came of it. Closed my account soon after that. Plus they were getting lazy about making sure everyone was paid on time.
January 3, 2016 @ 1:34 pm
Great thoughts. I will appreciate if someone connect me to a good content website. Such accounts are hard to create here. Kindly help me.
kasunolonline@gmail.com
January 6, 2016 @ 11:49 am
Poor Human Relations. They claim to accept writers from all over the world but the moment they note that you are not from the US, they purport that your sample has endless errors which is not the case.
January 27, 2016 @ 4:09 am
hi i have been writing for different content writing companies but they do not pay well.would someone please refer me to a good content writing company.Thanks & good day.
barmasaijames@gmail.com
April 20, 2016 @ 9:37 pm
I am puzzled by the complaints about Zerys. I’ve never had trouble with them. I think I’m paid a reasonable amount for the work that goes into the articles. They have a forum for the writers to discuss work and I’ve always gotten lots of positive feedback. They always pay on time, too.
April 30, 2016 @ 10:15 pm
I use Zerys from the buyer side. My screening process for writers, for both Zerys and other channels, is to find the people who are a) busy and b) prolific and c) actually speak English as their first language. Zerys makes that easy by looking at writer’s profile. I have flagged about two dozen writers as favourites, though I only use two regularly.
I’ve gone through about 15 writers on Zerys, looking for the ones that are consistent and can deliver. I’ve paid every writer that has applied for their first two or three articles, even if I am unhappy with the results and the text was atrocious. I leave a neutral feedback for those writers that under-perform.
Assuming the output is acceptable for needs I usually end up doing a quick edit; mostly removing filler phrases. I probably spend about $2 or $3 on filler phrases each time someone submits an article.
The first articles I assign to a new writer are a few hundred words in length and the assignment comes along with very clear instructions that need to be followed – usually the writer falls down by over stuffing with filler words, trying to keyword optimize (I never ask for a keyword optimized article) or doing the exact opposite of what I want.
The writers I have are turning out work that I pay between 6c and 15c a word for. For critical pieces, that need to be laboured over, I increase the price to 25c or 40c a word. Though for that price I don’t expect the text to be filler words and phrases that lower-end content writers are fond of using, e.g. “All that said” and “In addition too” and so on.
I do not know what my review or rating is on Zerys from the buyer side. I don’t really care so long as I receive satisfactory content.
May 1, 2016 @ 1:21 pm
I’m a 5 star writer for Zerys and find them to be far superior to Textbroker. Nearly all of my assignments are directly assigned to me, but I do dip into the pool when business is slow. That’s occurring far less frequently, however, as I stay very busy hopping between this and some other platforms. I love the flexibility of freelancing that Zerys and other sites afford me.
August 9, 2016 @ 11:24 am
I’m a five-star writer on Zerys too, and while they may offer quite a few jobs, they pay low and the approval time can sometimes be so slow (I now have an article waiting for approval that has been there for over two months!). With Zerys, the admin is very client-biased and if you have problems, they tend to always side with the client.
I’ve worked for Zerys for over two years now, but they are not my only, or main site. I do have a couple of good, consistent clients, but again, the pay is not great and the customer service is poor.
May 23, 2017 @ 12:45 pm
I don’t understand Zero’s, My first assignment was about 200-250 words. The due date May 20th, 2017, at 6:00PM. I posted my document 4 hours before it was due. The next thing I knew, I got suspended for turning in my document late. Then I checked back a couple of days later. On my dashboard, it said because I didn’t meet deadlines, I wouldn’t received any more assignments until 06/30. I’m a new writer too, can you imagine what that did to me? I will never go back there again! And the awful part is, I posted my picture on Zero’s site. But I closed my account and hopefully that will work for my picture too.
July 16, 2017 @ 7:15 pm
I signed up for a Zerys account, took the editor test, passed and now I’m waiting for my sample article to be reviewed in order to get my initial rating as a writer. It’s been several days and I’ve got no reply yet. What’s more, there are zero editing jobs so far. This was an informative and motivational post, but my initial impression on Zerys as a freelancing platform is nothing but disappointing.