$10 for 1,000 words is honestly the lowest end of the stick, like really low. That equals 1 cent per word.

Good beginners get 3 to 5 cents per word. If their quality allows, they deserve double that.

I personally don't take any new contracts below $0.10 per word anymore.

My first contract ever was a flat agreed upon "short travel guide" for where I live for $10. I didn't do the math back then, I was just happy to have a contract under my belt. I wrote about 15,000 words I think. Got 10$ (so less than a tenth of what even you'd have paid).

Together with this came a super tight deadline (I didn't yet know how many words per day I can churn out, then there was the necessary research about good locations for the guide)

I asked if the client would like to have another revision or additional checks done, she told me it's okay, she'll do it herself.

Well, turns out she didn't. Grammatical errors from the first to the last page (I just started out as a writer, keep that in mind), bad formatting, wrongly translated idioms from my mother tongue, and much more. She put that guide on Amazon, with my name on it.

It was utterly destroyed by the few people who bought it.

I was just as devastated. But a part of me was happy that she failed. Sure, my name is on it. It hurt my reputation as well. But that's what happens when you go the cheap road.

I've become much better since (I even write articles about proper grammar in English now, and they got curated, too)

But I'll never forget that first client.

I also work as a translator for a big game company. Sometimes they bring in new freelancers to work alongside me. Unbeknownst to them, my client has me check their abilities. More often than not, the translations delivered by them are blatant Google translations.

So I'm not too surprised that many people go the low effort road with low-paying clients.

And I assume that you either used Freelancer or, more likely, Upwork to hire these ghostwriters.

I generally recommend somewhat competent freelancers to not stick with Upwork or accept the ridiculous amounts that clients there call payment.

After all, you don't pay me for "doing work you could do yourself", but for "delivering work that you A) don't have to do yourself, B) don't want to do yourself, and lastly, the most important point C) work that creates an exponential ROI for you.

We both have had our share of bad experiences, on each side of the spectrum. Freelancers abusing you is just as bad as clients offering slave-pay. Because this ruptures the trust between both parties, and subsequent freelancers and clients will get cheated by these people, who now share the mindset of "better them than me".

But for clients, I can say: "You get what you pay for."

For starting with $0.10 per word, you get my full service. For anything less than that, you won't even get a reply to your request. And what may sound like entitlement, is in fact the sum of many bad experiences I had made in the past.