Quote from: BigScrote on June 24, 2012, 03:55 pmQuote from: vlad1m1r on June 24, 2012, 03:04 pmHi BigScrote,I had the same thought myself when I saw there was an e-book of thousands of past papers for sale on SR! I think you would find some uptake on this but you shouldn't feel the need to restrict yourself to the road in offering this service as there are many websites which will lput you in touch with interested students in exchange for a small commission.When I was doing my Masters in Linguistics I did see some pretty advanced anti plagiarism software coming into play (fortunately I already had my degree under the belt by then!) and realised that in future the only safe way to cheat would be for someone else to write the paper for you.If I could doll out karma yet, I'd be showering you in it. Thank you so much for the response; these are some great ideas. I'm hesitant to set up an account before securing at least a couple customers, but I'll definitely do that once I get some interest. I've seen some of the software before, and it's only become cheaper and easier to use. So I'm thinking people will pay a premium for intelligent and well-written papers. Go party, kids! Leave that pesky academic action to me :DQuoteI'd suggest you have a minimum charge and then charge for blocks of 250 words or part thereof from then on (I think your average thesis would be around 10,000 words?). Great idea. What are you thinking would be a reasonable minimum charge? Of course, once established, I'd likely be increasing the cost (Go capitalism!!). I was thinking of starting at 3 or 4 pages, and then charging incrementally according to number of pages. QuoteIf you want to do it via Silk Road I'd get a seller account and create a listing linking to a a few samples in text documents you've uploaded. Maybe it would be best to do one for each subject in which you/your partner feel comfortable?I think it would also be a good idea to say you'd be happy to proofread essays in English already written by foreign people learning our language. I made a pretty penny out of doing just that for Chinese students during my studies.THIS is a phenomenal idea, but I'm not sure how much interest there would be on SR. Do you mind telling me where you did this? I've offered free proofreading services for vendor pages - no takers yet though!QuoteBest of luck and do let me know how it goes. Anything I can do to help, just ask..!All the best,V.Thanks again Vlad - I really appreciate the offer and feedback. You're not such a bad guy, despite that whole impaling thing you've got going on :DHi BigScrote,Many thanks for your kind words. I agree it's no worth shelling out USD 150 just yet for a seller account. My suggestion to you would be to use your Tor browser to register on a few regular clearnet websites offering this service and work up a little capital. This will give you the advantage of having some readily obtainable testimonials if anyone asks for references.I just did a quick google of "essay writing services" and saw the following:http://www.a-writer.com/ ($25 per page for standard quality $35 for premium quality)http://essayswriter.org/ (Prices vary based on level e.g high school, undergraduate - University level seems to be around $15 for every 250 words)http://marvelousessays.com/prices.html ($16.99 for every 350 words or part thereof for University level work.The list goes, on feel free to have a Google yourself and note down a few prices. I like the idea of charging per X amount of words as charges per page can be ambiguous depending on font, pagination etc.You also might want to give yourself a buffer zone, if for instance you have to travel to your local library three times to get books on the subject of your choice, as you'll deserve some reimbursement for this. Probably the best way to market yourself if you were advertising on here in my opinion would be to say something along the lines of "Prices from as little as $25" and ask people to contact you for an appraisal.This is important as not only will it give you an idea of the level of work involved but in my experience customers are all about the personal touch ; many of my clients comment they appreciate the time I take to explain things to them and although of course I'm happy to do it anyway, it's been very good for business.Second you might find your client already has the bare bones of the essay in mind or even written a first draft and just need you to flesh it out. A rigid $X per 100 words price structure wouldn't accommodate this.As such I would suggest you say that you're willing to appraise and proofread papers as well as write them from scratch and once again say your prices for this are as little as $X - of course this may well be no more difficult for a learned person like you or your partner just printing it off and annotating it but it could make a huge difference to the student! :-)This brings us neatly to the whole proofreading issue. The method I used to advertise here in the UK was to travel to several Universities in the city where I was studying and put up some typewritten adverts offering to proof read essays for International Students. The first two students who were Chinese received a freebie in exchange for them helping me put up a bilingual notice so their non English speaking friends could spread the words too. Another advantage of putting up the signs in other languages is that I could put them up in the academic departments themselves and they'd only be understood by the people that mattered!Obviously that may be more difficult for you depending on where you live but students do have electronic bulletin boards which you may be able to access or perhaps barter proofreading of essays for a student to send a mass e-mail to other students offering your services and CC you in? Naturally Facebook doesn't require you to have an academic e-mail address any more so you might want to see if you can find any student groups that way.I've just finished reading "The Offshore Road to Riches" which you can buy from the vendor echo on SR which mentions a gimmick used by TEFL teachers abroad whereby you offer someone a free English lesson if they can bring along four paying friends. Perhaps you could do something similar here?Hope this helps, feel free to use none/some/all of it as you see fit.As for my impaling, I've had no complaints yet but will keep you apprised! :-DV.