How to Make Money on Mturk Transcribing for CastingWords, Part I

CastingWords is an online-only website dedicated to providing fast, accurate transcriptions at a fraction of the cost of other sites. It does this through an Amazon.com service called Mturk – short for Mechanical Turk.

Mturk is a free-market driven, online smorgasbord of “hits” which pay anywhere from .01 and up. While you can make some decent coin doing these hits, generally they are not very worthwhile for the time and effort involved.

I say generally, because as you're about to see, there are exceptions.

To make any money on CastingWords – or Mturk for that matter – you first need to mosey on over to their website – http://www.mturk.com – and sign up to be a worker. Be prepared to have your checking account information handy. How else are you going to pocket all of that dough? Well, you do have another option (your only option if you live outside of the US), and that's transferring your money to an Amazon.com gift certificate.

If you're just saving up for the latest Kid Rock or Michael Jackson CD or maybe you just want to buy your kids a nice Christmas gift, then going the gift certificate route might not be a bad idea.

Either way, once you've set up your Mturk account, you just need to search for “castingwords” in the search box. Make sure that “HITs” is selected and press “GO.”

Whoa! Look at all those hits. All of those hits you're not qualified for.

You're probably thinking that I'm yanking your chain or something. Nah, I wouldn't do that to you. If you read carefully, at the top of each hit, it says “Take Qualification Test (Why)” or something to that effect.

Click on that link. If my memory serves me correctly, there was no actual test that you had to take. Some Mturk qualifications are like that. Why? I don't really know. Maybe it's so only the people that really want to work the hit has access to it.

Anyway, you should very shortly (if not immediately) be granted a qualification number of 85.

What does that mean? It means that with that and a buck-fifteen you can get yourself a cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.

Not really. It means that, for all intents and purposes, you've been hired. You are now an independent contractor qualified to work on hits for CastingWords. Congratulations! Now go buy yourself a cup of coffee and celebrate.

Part II



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