Decent English is the best place to start. Low price and good writers (American-born or British-born). But it's not possible to check this. Don't forget about free gifts! :)

But in all seriousness, who is providing the free samples? Are the writers being paid for this work?

Having problems with Craigslist - they delete my essay writing services ads?

I have been trying out some ads on Craigslist to advertise my services. But they seem to get "flagged" and deleted most of the time. What's up with that? Is essay-writing a forbidden service, or am I using the wrong wording, or what?

Anybody else had this problem? Also, have you found Craigslist to be very effective in general?

Yes, that is approximately the revenue projection that I have mapped out, too. If I were in my 20s, and without responsibilities, I would probably work six or seven months, then go globetrotting in the off-season. But somehow, the wherewithal to be an essay writer seems to develop at a later stage in most people. Maybe it's an issue of self-discipline or problem-solving skills. Or mortgages.

OK, so, to anybody ... what percentage of the year's total essay income would you expect to come from the six or seven busy months? I mean, obviously it's going to be more than 50 percent, but would you expect it to be as high as 75 percent? 90 percent?

In a "dead" month like August, would it be reasonable to earn a tenth as much as in, say, November? Or 25 percent as much?

JohnsMom, how much off-season is there for you, typically? How dead are the dead months, and how many of them are there? Are you mainly working with companies, or private clients?

You have to establish trust with your own client base -- repeat customers. The fact that it's seasonal is neither here nor there -- a lot of businesses are. It is a predictable cycle. Make as much money as you can in the high season, plan for less in the low season. Everybody needs a vacation at some point. Plus, more experienced writers are telling me that it's not nearly as seasonal as it used to be, because of online courses.

I recently helped some students with undergraduate work, then helped them with graduate school admissions essays, and I imagine that when the time is right, I'll be helping them with theses, too.

Freelance writers have to realize that they cannot "compete" with large companies. The companies live on Google searches, and it takes a lot of money to land on the first search page. Even if a freelancer could land there, there would be no way to handle the volume generated. You must find other ways to carve off a small hunk of the cheese. There is plenty of business for every reliable company and qualified writer -- probably more than enough. The problem is the scam and incompetent companies competing unfairly, muddying the waters, and generally wreaking havoc.

editor75 kind of reminds me of a monkey sitting on branch throwing his own crap down at people. Kind of endearing, though.

I meant that post for the other thread, where I was called a poacher. Oh well. It applies anywhere, I guess.

Michael, I don't want to say too much publicly. We can discuss over email or PM.

In the busy season it's quite easy.

Yes, and I should clarify, I am not against company work. My time to work on essays right now is limited, so I only work on private projects. In the future, I will probably try to take on company work, too.

I only freelance, and have never worked for a company. The going rate for freelancers is $30 per page. I don't know what companies pay. On this forum, I have read that the standard cut for a freelancer when working for a reputable American company is 55 to 70 percent of the total price.

As to why more people don't go solo, several factors play in:

-They don't know how to find clients.
-They don't like marketing.
-They don't like dealing directly with clients.
-They get so busy working for companies, they don't find time to do their own marketing.

Working for companies is the path of least resistance. The qualities that make a person a good writer are not the same as the ones that make a good businessperson. In fact, quite the opposite.

For the rare person who is good at both marketing and writing, there is a lot of money to be made.

This kind of stuff is why I work only for private clients.

Wait a minute. I was reading "stable" as in "stability." You mean Editor75 actually lives in a stable? He's not in there doing the horses, is he? That would explain a lot. That must be why he moonlights. Hay is not cheap ...

Shall we get the fellow a cookie?

Got news for you: If you were anything, you wouldn't be "moonlighting" in an industry you detest.

Great way to look at it. I will start pricing more along these lines. Thanks for your response.

Apparently, your reading comprehension is lacking. Either that, or you live in a country where $30 over four months would be serious coin.

You would be amazed at the "papers" some hapless students end up with. I've seen them when I've been asked to do cleanup jobs. My usual response is, "This cannot be done. If you want a paper, we'll have to start over." You would basically have to see it to believe it. I have some old snippets I could send you that, sadly, would end your optimism on this issue.

Never heard of them. You ask us not to mention the price, but this is important. I tried their cost calculator. For a typical five-page bachelor's level paper, due in 14 days, the cost would be $69.75, or approximately $14 per page. Let us imagine that the writer gets half of that. What kind of writer would you expect for $7 a page? (Hint: When his mother sang him to sleep at night as a child, it wasn't in English.)

Now, what I described is, of course, not your paper. But do you think that for last-minute assignments, they call out the native-speaker brigade? Nope, it's still the guy who didn't hear "Mary Had a Little Lamb" as a boy. And for the urgency, maybe he's making $9 a page. (Though to be honest, I doubt they pay the writers half the sale price.)

Of course, not every paper has to be written by a native speaker. Only you can assess your needs. Best of luck. Let us know how it turns out.

Seems to me that you're the one trying to make us look bad. Probably afraid we'll take clients privately, thus directing them away from the companies that you work for. As for me, in the four months I've been on the forum, I've made $30 from a client who found me here, and that assignment was way more trouble than it was worth. I've turned down several other pieces of work that floated my way. By the time they get here, it usually means they've got a godawful assignment with an impossible deadline. And, oh, yeah, they don't want to pay much. Well, one guy had a reasonable enough assignment, but it wasn't up my alley and it was British.

Don't trust th63. He eats moldy bread for breakfast.

The site states very clearly: "Nobodies perfect in this world so we do offer (2) Free revisions. Revision process can take up to 5 business days."

What could there possibly be to worry about?

This looks like a case of professional jealousy to me. Sorry for playing armchair psychologist. Freelancewriter is at the top of the field. I do not know editor75 or his work. However, his posts have yielded some hints. He said he's here to get leads on companies to work for and that he considers some posters, who focus on private clients, to be peddlers.

In a previous post, editor75 has stated: "but when someone says, 'I don't write for any companies,' but still wants your business here on the forum, that's a signal for you to use caution. there's likely a good reason that person isn't able to get work the easy way."

He has also stated that he thinks this business is a silly thing to do for a career.

The thing is, writers make a lot more money on private clients. The "easy way" isn't the most profitable way. Freelancerwriter has stated on this forum that the majority of his business is from private clients. If you can get them, why wouldn't you? It's the only way to get into that highest circle of writers. I suspect that editor75 is unwilling/unable to get and keep private clients, for whatever reason. He resents freelancewriter's success.

And why, again, did you say you are here?

Let me say a little more. I am a writer, too, and when I have had work I couldn't handle, freelancewriter has helped me out by taking it off my hands. So I know his work first-hand. He is a top-quality essay writer, and probably the most dependable writer you would find. He had a background in writing and editing from a previous career, and I would say he is one of the most elite writers in this business. The number of American writers who do this work full-time and at this level is very, very small. I am a writer, too, so theoretically freelancewriter and I are in competition. But I don't see it that way, and I don't mind recommending him as a great choice for students, because I know there are plenty of clients for both of us. I think that both freelancewriter and I regularly end up with more work than anyone should be able to handle.

People do not have to like each other. That's none of my business. I can say confidently, though, that FreelanceWriter is not a "con artist." He's been on the forum for quite some time, and I don't recall ever seeing a credible post by anyone claiming to have been cheated by him. A cheater would be outed quickly on this forum.

ScammerHunter
It's a nice website, though. I wonder how much it would cost to get something like that done?

I'm late to the discussion, but I think the discussion more or less shows why the university concept of plagiarism is a load of crap. Plagiarism is a big and scary word and in my mind, it best suits the world of professional writing where one writer has taken another's words and is profiting from them (financially or in career standing). University papers involve taking lots and lots of ideas from other people, citing them, putting in a bit of shallow commentary, and calling it a day. What's plagiarism? I don't know. Just don't copy and paste, and you're usually fine. Learn to paraphrase and your uni or college life will be much easier too :)

Actually, yes, as a boy I did once. Very strange.

I don't mean any disrespect to the owners. I like this and think it is valuable, or I wouldn't be here. But if this site was ever useful for exposing scams, that time is long past. It's exactly as useless for identifying scams as it is for finding a good writer. You simply cannot tell who's who or what's what about anyone, at least not at first glance. Let's say "Student A" comes and posts that "Company X" is a "complete and total scam who cheated me out of $200!" So what? Is Student A a student, or a competitor? It's the same if Student A sings a company's praises -- who knows what the motivation is?

Confounding things, certain companies cannot be mentioned. If some companies can be mentioned and some cannot, then how can we expect to get an objective view of the industry?

Put another way, if any student asked me, "How in the heck can I identify scam companies?" then most assuredly I would NOT tell them to come here.

Let me reiterate: I like the site. I see it as a place for writers, students, and company representatives to discuss the industry. With enough time here, you can start to get a feel for the industry. It's like the proverbial blind men feeling up the elephant. It's where I have learned much of what I know, and it's where I continue to ask questions.

Every now and then, I end up in touch with a potential client. It's not why I'm here. Usually the assignments are not what I'm looking for -- they're last minute, they're tedious, they're British. People end up on random websites pleading to strangers in the middle of the night for a reason.

As far as I know, there is not a whole lot of malicious stuff they could do with the log-in and password.

I completely agree with JohnsMom. That said, I have heard that the two companies you mentioned are among the best in the biz.

It's fairly obvious that the OP is a shill for customwritings. We're supposed to say, "I can get a C for only $80? The main problems are just grammar? Heck, I could fix those problems myself and probably get a B. What a deal!"

Do you think it's good for a full-time job?

My, my. Someone seems mighty sensitive about the scams of the essay industry being exposed. I wonder why?

Exactly right.

There are many sites, primarily based outside of North America and the UK, who deal not in quality, but in volume. They hire incompetent writers, and therefore they aren't going to get many repeat customers. So they must get lots and lots of first-time customers. They do this by capturing web traffic. They want the hapless student to place an order with them and not a competitor. Thus, they spend large amounts of time trying to smear any perceived competition.

Quality providers do not think like this. Their business depends on repeat customers. They know that customers who have had a good experience, are very unlikely to switch to another provider.

The industry's best writers are overbooked, and they're not out fishing for every hot lead on the web. They don't have the time or the need to slam competitors. In fact, in the busy season, they're often trying to get other writers to take some of their work.