Internet Writing Services

You may have heard of them

They are all over the internet advertising their services through very sophisticated websites. I know of them as over the last 2 years I have signed up with many of them and looked at dozens of websites.

As a disabled person, I make my living and support my family through content and academic writing. It is one of the few employment opportunities available for me. While I enjoy writing and working with my many clients, I cannot say the same thing about the different writing services I have gotten work through.

It is hard to avoid sour grapes

In writing about these services it is hard to keep the emotions out of it as just this morning I had an order canceled on me for no real reason. That meant over 2 hours of my time were wasted and my fee was gone as well.

That is one of the drawbacks of being a writer. Even though you put the clients’ ideas to paper and make the writing service a lot of money, writers, in general, are not treated very well by these services.

These writing services focus on making the client happy and give them the benefit of the doubt, while they deprive the writer of any real protection. It is the writer who takes all the risks when they sign up with these writing services.

The fees they charge

If you have encountered these writing services for your own writing needs, you know that for the most part, they do not come cheap. Some will charge between $9 to 15 a page for normal papers under normal deadlines. Those fees can double if the deadline is in the next day or two after placing the order.

While the writer will get an increase of their per page fee in those situations, it is still not a lot of money for the work and stress they have to do. The fees barely cover the writing. And they rarely pay for the research time a writer has to do to make sure they produce an original paper that is acceptable to the company, the client and the client’s professor.

Content writing is a little cheaper and if the writer gets a good client, then then can make some money. But in this highly competitive field, it is a race to the bottom for the clients as they continue to see how cheaply they can get their writing tasks done.

This is not good for the writer as they cannot raise their writing fees as they get more experience and get better at writing the content. There is always someone somewhere in the world who will do it for a far cheaper price.

Submitting an application

This can be time consuming as well. For the academic writing companies, they want a lot of personal information to make sure you are qualified to actually write for them. Some companies go overboard with their requirements, this step is still needed as there are a lot of people who think they are a writer but in reality fall far short.

Content writing companies are a little easier to work with as they usually only want basic information and a sample or two of your work. I much prefer working with a content writing company that an academic one because the attitude is usually better.

Content writing companies do not have that superiority attitude I have seen at the Academic writing services. Those holier than thou attitudes the powers that be at the Academic Writing services use against writers does not make for a good writing environment.

A lot of times, you get the feeling that these writing services are doing the writer a favor instead of providing real employment and financial protection.

Writers do not necessarily make a lot of money

The public may think that writers at these companies make a lot of money. Some do, if they have reoccurring clients who pay well or are able to grab the higher paying jobs quicker than others. That goes with the territory.

But these writing services charge writers a lot of money. Some content writing services do not charge the client at all. This is done in hopes of attracting more business. But someone has to pay for the writing services expenses.

If you thought it was the writers, you thought correctly. Some fees are as little as 10% of the fee paid by the client. For example, if the writer gets paid $10 for a 1000 word assignment, the company takes $1.

One company takes 22% of the fee. That is a big bite out of the writers’ fee. The clients at that place do not pay a large amount for their assignments anyways. They can get a 1000 word assignment done for $5, give or take a dollar or two.

On top of that, when it comes time to get paid, the writing services usually takes the transfer fee out of the writers’ balance further cutting their take home pay. Writers do all the work, do revisions, take the blame, get assignments canceled on them and still do not make a lot of money.

Writing limits

To help spread work around and make sure one writer does not dominate the bids for work, most writing companies put a cap on how many writing assignments a writer can work on at one time. This cap is engineered to also help the writer produce quality work.

I am not going to speak to all writing services as their restrictions probably vary. I had one put the cap a 5, another at 1, and still another at 8. This can be acceptable and fine but only if the client does not delay in picking up their completed assignments. If they don’t then the writer is blocked from taking more assignments.

Trying to get clients to pick up their assignments is a delicate task. One that I wish I did not have to worry about or do. You do not want to offend the client or lose potential work when you have to remind them to pick up their orders.

Penalties

Another negative that comes with working for writing companies is that if the writer is late with an assignment, they will be penalized. The writing services usually have a list of stated fines they will assess the writer for sometimes minor infractions.

The existence of this writing service fact does not help motivate the writer and makes the writing environment a lot harder than it should be. The fines can be assessed arbitrarily.

There may be hope

I hope in this brief glimpse at writing services you can get an understanding that writers do not have it easy and rarely make the big bucks. It is hard work and it must all be done by the individual deadlines that come with each assignment.

Granted, there are a lot of bad writers out there who do shoddy work. I am not one of them as I have held 5 star ratings at several different writing companies. My goal is to make the client and the company look good.

But I have a little hope. There are still good companies out there