However, what most students do not realise, is the more work they do in preparing for the essay before they recruit me, the cheaper it will be. If a student simply gives me the essay question, and requires me to find sources to quote, then the price is going to be higher. If the student prepares a list of acceptable sources, and outlines the document, then the price will be lower.

I think I might actually write a set of guidelines for academic clients, explaining to them the way in which they can save some money and streamline the entire process.

One thing I have noticed lately is the increased demand for freelance writers. OK I specialise in writing website content and other forms of writing designed to be used on-line, so we can expect a growth in this industry as the internet is still booming. However, the increase in demand seems to be significant.

I can only attribute this to the growing awareness of the importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), and the fact that many SEO practices revolve around a requirement for quality website content.

This of course is good news for those people like me, who make their living as a freelance writing, focused upon producing high quality website content.

Let us hope the boom continues into the future.

So I really must be doing something right I guess, although its been a long haul getting the ball rolling, it has taken me over a year to get to this stage, but I think it has all been worth it when I see where I am today. So a big thanks to all my clients who have helped me so much over the last few months, many of you have been extremely supportive and helpful.

Recently, following a spate of dealings with blatantly crooked customers, who had placed orders, accepted delivery and then promptly disappeared without a trace, I have begun to insist that all of my clients use an escrow service to handle project funding.

Escrow is a great way to protect both the buyer and the provider. By using an escrow service, the buyer is no longer required to make any advance payment, which could theoretically be lost. For me, the main advantage lays in the fact I know for sure the project funds are available and ready to be released to me once the project is completed. All in all a much safer situation for everyone involved.

Possibly the most awkward thing for me, is the fact that I always seem to find myself either deathly quiet on the work front, or snowed under. Yesterday was a great example of this, I was just finishing off a fairly heavy project, and had very little else lined up for the next few days, in truth I was looking forward to a short break.

So what happens just as I save the final copy of the dissertation I had been working on? My email icon lights up, and there in my mailbox are two new, very large projects, both with tight deadlines. In a normal working environment, you would explain to whoever assigned you these projects that you do not have enough time to complete both before the deadline. As a freelance writer, I cannot afford to turn any of my established clients away, I do not want them taking their business elsewhere, so I have to accept both projects and burn the midnight candle again.

This is the only major problem I have with being a freelance writer, and I can see no way to make this issue less challenging, but then again, I am not sure I really would want too.

XXX is an Italian fashion company with more than 30 years of experience in the fashion field.
Its history is characterised by a costant research for new value, tangible and intangible, to provide to its clients all over the world.
XXXl has been able to impose itself overall in the Italian and European scenery maintaining a constant growth since 1997.

So many of my clients have been burned like this before they came to me, but who’s fault is it? Personally I believe it is their own fault, anybody who thinks they can have somebody write good copy, whilst paying them almost nothing, is barking up the wrong tree as they say. Luckily a lot of them do move on and find a decent content creator to provide them with great copy.

I worry about those that just throw in the towel, thinking there is no point trying to find a good writer, due to the experiences they have had with bad writers in the past. This is bad for my business. Every bad writer, undertaking projects for peanuts and delivering garbage, is hurting the overall image of all freelance writers who work via the Internet.

Lastly, let’s not forget the freelance work sites, that do nothing to ensure that service providers are actually qualified and capable of doing the work they bid upon properly.

Today I noticed a project that was a little different, sitting there among all of the people who need 10 x 500 word, keyword rich, search engine friendly articles. This project involved writing an entire book, the concept for the book was provided, pretty much a ghost writing job.

The buyer was asking for between 150 and 200 pages, so let’s do the math on that shall we? That’s 200 times an average of 400 words per page, which comes in at 80,000 words, give or take a few full stops. At my minimum rate, this would come to $1,600, and that’s my rock bottom, got nothing better paying to do, better earning this than nothing rate. This prospective client is only offering a maximum of $750. I think to myself well, I could do with a break from the usual things I have to write, it might be a fun project, and I’ll fly it for $750, just for a chance to write something a little meatier for a change. And quite frankly, it’s easy, anybody who thinks that writing fiction is harder than writing copy that you need to painstakingly research, and that needs to be factually correct, is in the wrong job.

So I make a bid upon this project that is well under half my usual rate, a short while later I receive an email from the client, this email asks me to provide samples of fiction materiel I have had published before, or titles of books if I cannot provide the actual materiel. So it would appear that this person is hoping to hire an accomplished, published fiction writer, and pay them a little over $0.90 per 100 words.

I seriously wonder sometimes, if some people live on the same planet as me? Or are they visiting us from some remote star system, where food and accommodation are free, and people are willing to work eight hours a day for a bag of roasted peanuts?