Picking a Nickname

Welcome to Textbroker, or for some of you, welcome back! Whether you are a brand-new author or an established freelancer with us but haven’t gotten to filling out your profile, setting your nickname is a great way to be seen by clients and teams! Along with that, nicknames allow our internal staff to remember you better, and the better we know your style, interests, and writing technique, the more likely we are to think of you for new teams and projects we get!

How to Set Your Nickname

Before you can set your nickname, make sure you have created your Payoneer account AND submitted your W9 tax form. Your W9 is how our system fills in your name, and without that information, any nickname will be blocked as a precaution to protect your identity. Once that is done, you will want to log in to your account. To do that, go to “Account” and then “Public Profile.”

From there, you will want to scroll down and find the box that says nickname.

Here, you can type in any nickname that you would like! Try to think of something creative and fitting for you, as this is sometimes the very first thing a client might see. 

That said, make sure your nickname is something you WANT to be seen by potential clients or internal TB staff. The nickname “BeerNBeinLazy” might be fun, but it won’t look as professional next to “WordWelder” or “ILuvCars.” Once you have what you would like to use as your nickname, hit “Save,” and it will be queued to be approved. 

Important Note: Nicknames will not apply immediately as they all undergo a manual review before being applied. If your nickname does not show right away, please give it a few hours to be sent through.

What to Remember When Choosing a Nickname

There are a few things worth keeping in mind before you jump straight into setting your nickname! The first is to keep in mind what is NOT allowed as a nickname:

• Entire or partial parts of your legal name (IE: Bob Smith going as B_Smith, BobS, etc)

• Anything against TOS including:

  • Explicit or offensive names

  • Names of real people or celebrities (sorry, we can’t have two Tom Cruises!)

  • Names meant to upset or target certain groups of people 

• Special characters (✺,★,®, etc)

Finally, please remember that nicknames must be unique! Even if your nickname meets the above requirements, it might already be taken by another author, so make sure to keep a few backup names in mind in case your first choice doesn’t work.

Resources for Choosing a Nickname

Having trouble coming up with a name? Here are a few ideas or generators you may want to try:

• https://www.spinxo.com/ 

• https://usernamegenerator.com/

• Take the name of a street you once lived on.

• Use the name of a loved pet.

• Horses have cool names! Take the name of your favorite Kentucky Derby winner.

• Think of something geographically related to where you live.