At Review Stream, there is no registration needed. You simply need to decide on a pen name (you can use your real name if you like), key in your email address, and submit your review. Each review needs to have a title, the review content, a category and your rating (1-10). Subsequently, you have a choice of whether you want to paid at the bulk rate if your review is not being accepted for the full rate. The full rate currently stands at $2 per review. If your review is accepted only at bulk rate, you will be paid 20% of the full rate which is 40 cents.
Once you have successfully submitted your review, there will be an e-mail confirmation. The editorial team will then review your review, and send another e-mail confirmation upon acceptance or rejection of it.
I have submitted some 23 book and website reviews, but they have all been paid at the bulk rate. So at one time, I thought that this must be a scam, paying us peanuts for our writing efforts. If all my reviews are at bulk rate, I would have to write 125 reviews to reach payout! That's not very encouraging and simply too much work. The task ahead looks impossible, so left the site for a couple of months.
Then I read about a freelance writer who got paid by Review Stream after completing a certain number of reviews. Some of her reviews were paid at the full rate while others were paid at the bulk rate. Once she reached the minimum payout, which took 1 month to complete, she requested for her payment. She received it within 6 hours upon request. The site is legitimate afterall!
I was truly inspired by her achievement and decided to put in a little more effort writing the reviews. So I decided to implement some strategies to earn more money.
Review topics
First of all, the types of reviews matter. I was writing reviews on books and websites which are not among the "wanted" categories. Reviews on travel, hotels, cars, insurance are often the ones which are paid at the full rate. So I gave it a shot. I wrote a few hotel reviews based on the ones I recently went to, and I was paid at the full rate. Excellent!Check out the list of wanted reviews
There is also a list of reviews wanted by readers. They are based on what people searched for at Review Stream. You may find something which interests you to write about. I have not really tried these categories, but I believe that your reviews will also be accepted at the full rate, since it is based on what readers are searching for.
Bulk rate vs Full rate
There are some reviewers who implement this strategy which I'm also trying out. They choose not to be paid at the bulk rate when submitting their reviews. Subsequently if they were not accepted, they would rewrite them to improve them and resubmit. It is a lot of work and time spent though.Review everything
I have opened my eyes to everything I can see, touch, feel and experience when it comes to thinking about the different things I can review. When I'm at a loss, I usually think about what I did that particular day. For instance, I may have visited a restaurant, went shopping or watched a movie. Restaurants, shops and movies are all things you can review.Write a good review
When writing a good review, it is important that you include your personal opinion and experience in it. People are not looking into getting descriptions they can find on the web, they want to know how you felt about the product or service. So be specific!
Word Count
So as not to have your reviews rejected by Review Stream, each review must have at least 200 words. It is best that you use an online word count tool and check for the number of words before submitting them. If you don't have 200 words, your reviews will be rejected immediately and shown a message saying that your review is not valuable to them. The words may sound harsh but it deters people who write one-liner reviews in the hope of getting paid.
Review Stream takes 3-5 days to review your reviews before accepting or rejecting them. Sometimes, they take a bit longer. I do get a little frustrated though. Currently I have 8 reviews which have been submitted and awaiting confirmation. I just have to be patient since this really is a legitimate site afterall. To all reviewers out there, all the best!
