I Finally Got Onto Newsbreak!

In December 2021, I wrote an article entitled Newsbreak Hates Me! That’s how long I’ve been trying to create an account. One year and two months later, I’ve finally verified my account and got to the next stage.

I’m not monetised yet. I submitted two stories for approval, and they were both published without issue last night. Getting monetised will be the next challenge.

The problem has been the registration process. Writers need a US phone number to create an account. I’m UK based, so I don’t have a US phone number. I tried a number of online telephone services, attempting to get a free number, but Newsbreak repeatedly told me that the ones I found online had all been used before.

It seemed hopeless. I couldn’t get verified. I gave up.

But I kept reading people’s stories about Newsbreak earning them good money — better than Medium in some cases. So, I tried again. I failed again. This continued for some time.

The first time I tried to get onto Newsbreak, I didn’t even get as far as the verification page. I found myself on the reader site, instead of the contributor site. I didn’t know what I was doing and couldn’t see how to write a story! Someone helped me with that.

In the end, I parted with my credit card details to get a US phone number — that was something I’d been resisting for a long time. I used a number provided by OpenPhone. They’d already told me it wouldn’t work, but I thought I’d try anyway.

The process was far from straightforward. It was fraught with error messages and problems. I didn’t even know my free trial had started until I messaged the helpline to query why my credit card wouldn’t go through.

It even looked like I might be billed for my new OpenPhone account. But then I managed to get the phone number to work during the free trial period, and swiftly cancelled the impending credit card payment to OpenPhone.

So, finally, it worked! I have a verified Newsbreak account.

I’ve submitted two pieces. They were published last night and one of them already has over 2000 views! I’m now wondering if I should have saved that one until I was monetised!

For those already on Newsbreak, please do tell, is there a place for UK news on the platform? What kinds of stories do well on there? Any tips on the best content for the platform would be welcome.

Here’s a link to my profile. I now need 100 registered followers so I can apply to be monetised.

I'm planning to cover news, health, travel, and anything else that suits me.

Kirsty Kendall wrote about her experience on Newsbreak:

"Like on all platforms, some of your articles on NewsBreak will flop, and your “bestseller” articles will gain you most of your views. But the earning potential on NewsBreak is much higher than on Medium.

"So much higher, that I’m more motivated to write for NewsBreak now than for Medium. I won’t quit Medium, but I won’t post there as much as before. I will put more of my eggs in my NewsBreak basket. I would be crazy not to!"

I'm now trying to figure out how to tell whether my 38 followers are registered followers, because that matters when you apply to be monetised on the site.

Here’s a link to my profile on Newsbreak. Follow me on the platform and watch my progress, if you like!

(c) Susie Kearley 2023.