We need a National Association of Freelance Academic Writers

I've never been paid by the hour as a freelance writer, but I had an e-lance client who paid roughly $100 per page and the work (veterinary information site) was a lot easier than most of my regular freelance academic work.

I've had a couple of tutoring sessions where I charged per hour. Basically students wanted me to run them through the paper content and structure. Fun experience, but I prefer writing.

The one time I charged by the hour (I can't provide details about the project), a long-time but desperate client offered me $500 for one hour and felt I undercharged by the time I finished. Talk about pressure ...

The only issue I found with EFA was that one of the members "reports the freelance editors listed there are not vetted" ( pred-ed.com/peesle.ht). I've joined as a guest member but haven't had time to explore the site but I'll let you know what I find.

Update:

While the guest membership for the EFA is severely restricted, I've found some information about this association that seems to support its credibility. They have about 3,000 paid members more or less and receive around 400 job listings each year. The association maintains a Facebook page and LinkedIn account that are restricted to paid members only (they are also on Twitter as EFA International). Paid members also receive some nominal discounts on health and dental insurance, a subscription to an online freelancing magazine, a 50% discount on ZipCar annual memberships and discounted usage rates, online educational programs and publications and a few other freelancer-specific bennies including networking opportunities.

I'm not convinced that this is enough bang for the buck. I'd probably be more interested in joining as a paid member if there were more job listings (but the 400 they post may be highly lucrative).

Maybe such an association would be very helpful in sifting out fraudsters and hacks, regardless of their claimed nationalities and language proficiency levels. Then again, considering that most academic writers are faceless - coupled with the moral baggage and somewhat extralegal nature of the academic writing industry, I'm not sure how this kind of association might function when compared with similar associations in other freelance writing niches.

Although I'm completely reconciled with the former, you're right on the money with respect to the latter. The "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" nature of this industry was what I wanted to address head-on with an association of freelance academic writers, but there doesn't seem to be a groundswell of support in here.

The problem with creating an association of freelance writers is that the membership dues paid would need to result in some sort of actual protection for the writers. What sort of protection could the association provide? How would it work? Would it be limited to the USA? Would there be a need for international chapters? What if the ESL writers create a similar organization? Wouldn't the associations just be a new way of creating more problems for the students? Having associations would not regulate the industry. Only a government agency overseeing such associations would, as best I can tell, provide credence, reliability, and professionalism in the industry. These are just some of the reasons that I do not believe creating an association would work to anyone's benefit in an industry that has remained unregulated for far too long.

That's an understandable perspective, Cite, since you've claimed on this forum to have a company and a stable of writers who you feel free to treat like garbage (fining them and not giving them a way to communicate with customers-- and that's likely the tip of the iceberg). You'd probably support a return to feudalism if it benefited your bottom line.

Since AI seems to be choking the life out of the independent writers line of work, I think that having such an organization would no longer be beneficial to the writers. That sort of organization would have been an asset during the prime era of academic writing. I could even see the organization working with schools, colleges, and universities when it came to developing guidelines for the academic writers. How far would be too far for the schools to accept other writer work from their students? What sort of protection would the association give the students against blackmailing and threats towards the the academic future of the students? What role could the writer's legitimately play in the ongoing education of the students? I think that this was a missed window opportunity.

Respectfully, I highly doubt that any academic institution would ever consider allowing, let alone facilitate or encourage, in any way, the use of professional academic writers by students. With the sole exception of the approved use of "editors" by PhD candidates writing dissertations, all academic institutions strictly prohibit students from ever submitting anything they haven't written entirely themselves; most of them expressly include that in their honor codes, and many assignments come with explicit statements -- that sometimes require their signatures -- attesting to the fact that their submissions consists entirely of their own work.

I don't ask my clients (or have any way of knowing) how they ultimately choose to use my work, even if it is intended just as a model for their own writing efforts; but I'm sure that the only kind of writing assistance ever allowed by colleges and universities is the kind available from the writing labs that they typically maintain, for exactly that purpose. Nowadays, even the use of AI programs is often expressly prohibited. Allowing students to submit the work of professional writers for credit will always be completely outside the realm of reasonable expectation, in my opinion.