Nature of the online freelance-writing industry

Am I correct in thinking that this 'freelance-writing' industry is, in large part, a thinly veiled cheating service for high school and university students to buy custom-writ school assignments? I've noticed a lot of back-and-forth in these forum threads and a very youthful tone throughout--is this basically a method for paying one's tuition by writing homework for the dumb kids? I guess I was naive to suppose that 'freelance writing' had anything to do with writing?

No, I would say you are wrong. I think that quite a few of us are much older than that. Some writers on this board have been at it for a decade or more. The skills to make any serious money in the essay game are ones that come with age and experience. Current students might dabble in the field, but I imagine that full-timers tend to be 30 and older (sometimes much older).

You can find out more about online freelance essay writing at freelanceessaywriters.com.

Freelance writers haven't said that they won't do any other work except essays and other student related work. Everyone just chooses the work which pays better.

This doesn't really make sense, writing is writing no mater what happens to the final product. andywoods57 is also right, many freelance writers undertake a wide range of work, CVs/resumes, web content etc spring to mind as just a few examples but essays do pay well and there is usually a high if seasonal demand for the product.

Essay writing is the underworld of the freelance writing profession. Most freelance writers don't do it. Those who do, probably don't talk much about it. A few people specialize in it. It is probably one of the most stable realms of the freelance writing world, but the least glorious, since you can't take credit for your work or even say much about it. For the top 10 percent of essay writers, it could be a lucrative specialty, better than most other forms of freelance writing. And by top 10 percent, I mean not only good quality and quantity of output, but also a knack for marketing and for finding loyal private clients. Grinding it out for the essay mills might put food on the table, but it won't put a nice car in the driveway. For top essay writers, who probably say little about their profession, the neighbors probably wonder, "What is that person doing in the house all day? Where is all that money coming from?"

Absolutely agree. you cant even get references from happy clients, except anonymously like I have on this site, because of the nature of things. Its definitely very lucrative and as long as you are prepared to ride the seasonal fluctuations you can make a good living. and yes repeat customers are extremely important which is why good companies and private writers will always do their very best to ensure the client is happy.

Of course that's all it is--a cheating service for students who cannot speak English well or are unable to do their own writing assignments.

Exactly. But lucrative. And I don't think that most of the writers are students themselves, or necessarily even young.

I do not see the academic writing industry as a method of helping students cheat. Rather, I view the work as a method offering a unique kind or student assistance. As I always say, when a student hires a tutor, the tutor helps the student complete the homework or whatever paper is required for the student's class. An academic writer does a similar type of service which aids the student in completing class requirements. Yes, we do the work required, however, that does not mean that the student cheated. He only asked for help in writing the paper. Since the paper should not be submitted for a grade as it is only a model paper, then the paper that was written for the student serves as a written tutorial or additional reading material in relation to the research paper or essay that he must recreate for submission in his class. The only reason that academic ghostwriters get a bad rap or rep is because the students always violate the agreement that should not submit the model paper for a grade. There is nothing the writer or the academic writing company can do about that.

I would not call it a cheating service. Rather, I would consider the services offered to be that of the "assistant" type. Consider the freelance writer or writing company a student's best friend. An academic nanny whose job it is to take care of his academic needs. Make sure that he doesn't have any problems in any classes, and that he manages to keep his grades up in order to help him get ahead in the future. The job of the academic writer is perhaps the most important one in the career of a student. Without his writing and research assistant, he would be overwhelmed by the academic demands of his school/college/university, which would mean the student would have a high risk of failure in his classes. So no, academic writers are not helping students cheat. The academic writer is merely helping to keep his grades up so that he can continue to compete in the academic world.

Wonderfully said! Those who are freelance academic writers--like myself--know that the majority of students entering college have NO clue how to research or write college-level papers. It's sad that many students leave high school without this very important skill. We help bridge that gap by providing services and assistance while they also learn from us. I have found that students who use academic writing services as entering freshmen and juniors are better equipped to manage their more intense courses as they advance into a higher university setting. I am proud to help students!

For the vast majority of college students, college is probably the last time they'll ever have to write anything like a research paper; so, it's a skill that's important only because they'll have to write them in college. The truth is that for many (if not most) students, there's really not all that much educational value from being forced to write research papers in college. Colleges just do that partly because of a tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages and partly because it's an easy (but relatively ineffective) way to "teach."


Clients in this industry aren't usually interested in learning anything from it any more than people who hire photographers are interested in learning how to take their own photographs. They're only interested in receiving a good product and in the end result in terms of fulfilling their course requirements and receiving a good grade. If it were possible to learn how to write research papers just from reading those written by others, they wouldn't need to order custom-written projects to do that, because they could learn just as well from simply reading any similar project written previously that received a good grade, which they could easily obtain online for a small fraction of the cost of custom newly-written projects, or, often enough, just as easily, for free. Likewise, they'd be able to write their own projects after the first or second time they received one from me, instead of ordering a dozen or two dozen of them throughout their 4 years in college.

To the extent it's possible to learn how to write a research paper that way, they'd have to know how we go about choosing source material, organizing an outline, and developing an outline into a complete paper. In nearly 20 years of doing this, I've had maybe 2 or 3 clients actually express a specific interest in learning how to write their own projects; it's probably far more common that they don't even read them. In terms of learning how to write well enough for the types of writing that most college students really expect to have to do after graduation, their English Composition courses are much more valuable than the types of research-paper assignments they typically order from me.

The youthful tone that most of the writers here choose to maintain has everything to do with gaining their clients. It will be easier for a student to trust a writer who sounds young and up to date as opposed to a writer who sounds serious, businesslike, and older than the client. An independent writer should know how to sound young when required, and older, if need be. It is the only way that a writer can remain competitive in this business. Although the writer is aging in real life, his writer age must remain stagnant / non- determined for as long as he wants to remain working in this business.

I don't do anything to alter my normal patterns of expression and I've been very open about the fact that I don't use Facebook or Twitter or text, and that I don't even own a smartphone. None of that seems to have affected my ability to get new clients. Quite the contrary, actually. Plenty of my clients have specifically mentioned that they chose me based on the substantive content of my forum posts and on their comparison of the way I express myself in written English to the way other writers express themselves here.


That hasn't been my experience at all. I don't know where you get your information or why this conclusion makes sense to you, but most students probably prefer doing business with an experienced, serious-sounding and businesslike writer who's been in this business for decades and who's produced about 10,000 essays during that time than with someone who was still playing beer pong in a fraternity until recently and who's really not much more experienced writing essays than the typical client.


I've managed to remain competitive in this business without doing anything to pretend that I'm younger (or older) than I really am. My guess is that most clients just want to deal with writers who aren't misrepresenting anything about themselves. Even my website and my advertising material mention that I've been writing academic essays professionally for 20 years, which makes it quite obvious that I'm well over twice the age of most of my clients. My guess is that they're much more likely to consider that a good thing that inspires some confidence rather than a bad thing that alienates them.


That's probably true for actors, not for writers.

The freelance writing industry is dying because of the advent of AI. It is not only the freelancers that are affected. The writing companies are also finding themselves in need of diversification in order to remain relevant or income generating in a world where AI takes over jobs faster than teachers can gain their teaching licenses. Freelance writers must diversify their client base and build new writing abilities in order to remain relevant in this industry. Find a place where AI writing is not involved and try to make your presence felt there.