Academic ghostwriting market - newbie writer's questions

Hey. I have decide to move from the local academic ghostwriting to the world market, and I gradually look around the area. I'm a good researcher and I have a relatively solid portfolio that allows me to choose other areas for a career. While I'm working on my grammar problems, I'm interested:

1. How much, in case of the regular 40-hour working day, you can get in a week if you are a bad ESL writer?
2. If you are a good ESL writer?
3. What are the career opportunities?
4. How can the information about the work on such sites affect to my academic CV (in the case of an application for a PhD)?

I'd advise to stay in the local area (assuming by 'local' you mean your country or some kind of university community) and slowly build reputation to gain more local clients. Going into the 'world ghostwriting market,' you'll have to compete with thousands of other ESL writers for less money you (probably) get now. UNLESS you have some extraordinary education or research skills related to hard-sciences like engineering, physics, math, accounting, computing etc.. then you could use your knowledge to successfully compete in these areas with native English speakers.

Regarding your future efforts to earn a PhD degree - working as an academic ghostwriter is not going to negatively affect your professional career.

@Major Thanks!

On the Russian online market I already have strong reputation, and now I am working only with expensive orders. But here is not big amount of people who ready to pay adequately (regular price for 1 page is slightly more than 1$). I just dont see possible development, but I already have a skill.

By the way, does exist another communities like this? EssayScam is half-dead.

If you only work for $1 then yes, your chances of getting better deals are very good. If you want communities that provide no substance, there are some available but you'll not get much any insight information there.

Quite wierd that thousands people involved in this business and it is no active professional community.

However, I still need info about actual average income for ESL's.

I'm not sure about thousands of people; out of 10 'freelance writer' accounts, 1-3 may be real / legitimate; same story with writing services (one fraudster manages 50+ websites under different names). A writer for hire doesn't typically work 40-hours a week; most of them work unscheduled hours (sometimes it may be 10 hrs a week, sometimes 50 hrs).

1) Run-of-the-mill ESL writers can earn anywhere between $1 and $800 per week (some earn more if they are very quick). This depends, mostly, on their ability and reading/comprehension skill/speed. Not to mention whether they work for companies or as independent writers makes a whole bunch of difference.

2) Very good ESL writers can earn significantly more (I know of one who makes upwards of $2k per week during the hot season), but they are very, very rare. While I don't know of all writers of this caliber, I cannot imagine there being more than 10-20 who earn such figures without off-sourcing their work. ENL writers are a different story altogether.

3) There are none, you can write and/or run your own company. Other than that, this is not a career you flash around in your CV.

4) What they don't know can't hurt them.

The earnings of a newbie writer in the academic field will depend mostly on whether or not he is attached to an essay writing company. The essay writing company tends to do an 80-20 split when it comes to the earnings. An ESL writer will suffer at the hands of the company if his English writing level is not at par with the vocabulary requirements of the paper.

No matter what rate is proposed, if the ESL writer will be penalized for various writing or improper research mistakes, in terms of grammar and punctuation, then the writer isn't going to be able to earn much. He will lose most of the income to penalties. So it is not right to guess the type of earnings a writer can make in a week, regardless of whether it is on a local or international academic market level. The earnings of the writer will depend on his writing level and the greediness of the academic company when it comes to wanting to take a lion's share of the writer's income. If a ghostwriter wants to earn a decent income in this field, he or she should try his best to start his own company, run his own QAD, and deliver on the client requirements. But it is not easy by all means and may not even be worth it considering the global competition in the ghostwriting market.

That is the only way to avoid penalties that make it difficult for ESL writers to earn a decent income in this too crowded field.

I decided to fix my results for the first month. I worked sporadically and performed about 20 small orders (2-5 pages) with an income of 3 to 8 $ per page. I never got a fine, except for the case when the customer did not know some subtleties of the APA format (the fine was lifted when I proved my point of view). At the same time, I made some papers in my native language and my income increased -- work on them was perceived as a Holiday.

Unless you fit into the category of being a bad ESL writer, why even ask the question? However, based on the verbiage of the posts, it would seem that your writing does need improvement. I'm not saying that to be negative or to put you down. I applaud you for what you're wanting to do and for seeking advice. That's the sign of someone who wants to improve.

Since your original post and update back in June, how far have you come? I like that you took orders in your native language. That may be where you succeed the most. Wishing you the best of luck and never stop working toward doing better. :)

1. There's really no such thing as a "regular" 40-hour work-week. Your earnings as a self-admitted "bad ESL writer" are limited to how many students are satisfied with bad ESL writing. I don't know any, because even ESL students with poor English skills typically want much better writing that that which they are capable of writing, themselves.

2. It depends on how successful you are marketing your skills.

3. None, other than maybe working for better essay companies.

4. In the US, most employers will probably only react with interested surprise that you earned a living this way and will be impressed that you could do it. In Europe, many more employers might have an issue with it. In any case, it's usually your choice to divulge it or not. Chances are the attitudes you encounter will probably be quite similar for PhD programs in the US and in Europe, respectively.

@everducky
The prospects are not good for "a bad ESL writer." As you are already a good researcher, I'd suggest you work on your writing skills and grammar problems first. Pursue better opportunities once you are a good ESL writer, and always strive for improvement.

Allow me to resurrect this post. I found a point of discussion that needs to be brought up. I'd like to discuss the OP's question about how his freelance academic writing work might affect his PhD application. Being an academic writer is not always seen in a positive light by academic professionals. They see it a form of unnecessary student assistance that promotes student cheating and encourages procrastination among the learners. As such, it would be best to not mention being an academic writer in a PhD application. However, the writing profession can be framed as "independent research" in various academic fields of interest for the PhD applicant. Sometimes simply rewording the description of your profession can go a long way in creating an impressive image with the reviewer. Properly misrepresenting your work area could probably do that.

There are no bad academic ghostwriter anymore. That is because the writers also use Ai to smooth out their writing or assist them in the paper development for their clients. That is why I always tell the students to make sure that the writers are not using AI on their papers. The income to be made from both the local and international academic writing market is already abysmal. The writers that choose to remain active barely manage to get orders because the clients oftentimes inquire about costing, find out the price, then decide to go with free AI writing instead, without realizing the problems that AI writing brings to their grades.