Anybody want to volunteer their transcribing services?

This came through a Yahoo! group that I am on. I thought I would post it here in case anybody is interested.

My name is Hunter Scott, and I am an intern working for Project HomelessConnect, a one-stop-shop of services for the homeless of San Francisco startedby Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004. I was referred to you by Claudette Allison, oneof our transcribers. We have a program we run at each bi-monthly event calledthe Story Project, in which we photograph and interview homeless, and thentranscribe those audio interviews, turn the most exciting into stories, and usethem for marketing and social networking.At the moment, Claudette is our only transcriber, and we have hundreds of audiofiles that need to be transcribed. Is there any way you could send out a messageto your network, informing any potential trancribers that we have a volunteeropportunity for them? Any help would be much appreciated, and would also benefitthe homeless.Thank you,Hunter Scott (

September off to a slow start

August has always been a pretty slow month in transcription land. This year it was definitely slower than June and July, which were actually pretty slamming busy with some special projects that came our way. September has started off fairly slow, which is not unusual in the least. It is allowing me to take some much needed time to clean my house and to work on my website!

Lots of Dissertation interviews to be transcribed

All last week and this week we are transcribing a bunch of dissertation interviews. We have also been transcribing a lot of interviews on the history of the Santa Clara County Parks Department for a book that a client is writing. This client's wife was one of my very first "internet" transcription clients way back in 1998. She also wrote a book. I really like these kinds of interviews. First of all, there are so many that I am able to keep several transcriptionists busy. And second of all, they are usually quite interesting. I really like the variety of the transcription services we've been able to provide to our clients lately.

Finishing up some big projects

Things are settling down a bit on a couple of very big projects. BUT we've picked up a new client this week, which has been very exciting. I'm finishing up the third interview for them now. Also, I did a free 10 minutes of transcription for another company and they are going to work on getting approval to use my services for a whole bunch of transcription! Could be a good lead!

Only 20 hours of audio to do now

The client took a closer look at their tapes and realized they only have about 20 hours of audio to be transcribed. We can definitely handle that in a week!

Today I'm going to work on getting an oral history interview transcription done that is quite long. I need to sort of clear the decks before the big work load hits at the end of next week. But I love being busy and I love the fact that I am not unemployed or having a slow time of it! Praise God!

40 hours of audio to be transcribed in one week?

Wow, I have a potential client that needs 40 hours of audio transcribed in one week! And they are on micro cassette tapes! So I will need to convert the tapes to MP3 files and then have them transcribed. The only way that I know to convert to MP3 right now is to play them out of my micro cassette player and record onto my digital recorder. Is there a better, faster way? Sure hoping so. I think it's going to be an intense week! And I don't even know when I'll be receiving the tapes for sure. We should know today though. The cool thing is we found each other on Twitter. My first business contact I've made through Twitter. Cool!

Overwhelmed with Transcription applicants

Find Transcription Work dot com issued a notice that I was looking for transcriptionists to help with overflow. What a response! I must have gotten over 500 applications! Just a little overwhelming. Unfortunately, a lot of them were from out of the country and my CPA says I need people with Social Security Numbers, so I had to immediately get rid of probably 150 or so. I still needed to weed some out, so I decided to discard all those who did not have a foot pedal. I mean, how serious can you be about running a transcription business if you don't even have a foot pedal?

That still left me with several hundred applicants. I'm sure there are some real gems in there, as well as some not so great transcriptionists. I'm going through the very tedious process of testing a few each week. I can't do too many ~ I just don't have the time. But there are times when I just need more help and I want to be able to call on good transcriptionists to help me out.

I've gotten so that I grade their tests. Kind of silly, but it's the only way to keep it all straight. So the "A" people are the first ones I will call on for overflow. They are the ones I want. They are also the ones that are harder to find. The "B" people will be good in a pinch to help with certain types of jobs that have a longer turnaround time and I can take more time to make the corrections needed to their work. The "C" people get a rejection e-mail. That is the hardest thing for me. I think the one I have written now is too abrupt and short. I don't want to be mean. But I don't want to give out false hope to people either. It's a fine line.

Transcription Services picking up

All that marketing I did during the slow months of January and February is really paying off now. Not only have my regular clients picked the pace back up, but I have several new clients to boot. I love it! It's a little tricky keeping up with it all, but it's all getting done. I have some wonderful new people on board who are really helping keep things running smoothly. I don't know what I'd do without them.

Teleseminar Transcription Services

Teleseminar transcription is fast becoming very popular. Why have your teleseminar transcribed? Well, you can do a number of things with a transcript from a teleseminar.
You can easily use portions of the transcript for a free report you may want to give away to potential clients. Or you may want to turn the transcript into an e-book to sell. This could pay for the cost of the transcription services possibly in a single sale of the e-book, depending on the price of the e-book and the length of the teleseminar.
Another reason to get your teleseminar transcribed is to possibly use portions on your website, which would allow the search engines to grab up any keywords in the text that they wouldn't find in the audio. This will only help you in getting your website ranked higher for your specific keywords.

Something else to keep in mind is that many people would much rather read a transcript than listen to an audio clip on your website. It is time consuming to sit in front of your computer while listening to a 30 to 60 minute audio, when you could curl up on your couch with a copy of a transcript of the same thing and read it at your leisure. I know I have bypassed listening to an audio just because I wouldn’t have time to finish listening to it. If they had offered me a transcript of the material I could have read it in chunks as I had the time.

Also remember, some people are just not audio learners and do much better if they are able to read it themselves and digest the information at their own pace. It’s always best to offer both the option of an audio clip and a transcript, if at all possible.

How to Start a Secretarial Service From Home By Someone Who Has

Do you want to start your own work-at-home transcription and secretarial service just like thousands of people are already doing? Starting your own secretarial and transcription service may be just the thing to allow you to finally fulfill your dreams of doing just that!

I have been working from home since 1990 when my oldest daughter was a year old. Oh, how I would have loved a mentor when I first started out! Someone who had been there, done that. Someone who would share all that they had learned, and I mean everything! I remember I had one book (guide) to help me back in 1990 on how to start a secretarial service and it was so vague. That book did not give me the answer to my most important question – what type of businesses to target and how to get clients! I hope to give you all the details so that you can be successful very quickly.

I want to share my experiences with others so that they may have the opportunity to be blessed as I have been. So I wrote this book to reach out to those who need a mentor to help them on their way.

There is a lot of valuable information in this book, with tons of resources to assist you on building your secretarial and transcription business. But I want to offer it to you at a reasonable price too, because I want it to be affordable to those who really need this information. I know when I started my service I was a stay-at-home mom without a lot of money. I know many people are in the same boat. That is why I set the price at only $7.99. It's affordable! You can get it an an instant download at the following link.

http://www.pioneer-transcription-services.com/workathometranscription.html