where can I hire a story writer?

[Actoid8]

Wasn't sure where to ask so I thought this sub-forum would be the best.

Is there any story writers here willing to do a small piece for me as long as the rates are sensible? how do you usually find someone for this.

 

[Jada59]

Wasn't sure where to ask so I thought this sub-forum would be the best.

Is there any story writers here willing to do a small piece for me as long as the rates are sensible? how do you usually find someone for this.

Someone here could probably do it. What's the gist of the story?

 

[Nezhul]

/shameless slef plug

You can check out my rates here:
https://isathornwood.wordpress.com/commission-a-story/
You can also read my stories there to see if you like the general style.

/shameless self plug

Other than that you can go to Story Ideas forum, but I don't get an impression that a lot of ideas posted there get anywhere.

 

[CandiCame]

I did not know people would pay money to me and then I write them a story.

That doesn't sound right, that's too easy. That can't be a thing.

I will 3000% do that, I just didn't know it was an option. Would I post it under my account or is it like a ghostwriter thing where you pay me under the table and then post it on your account as if you had written it?

I need the motivation, honestly. I never write smut anymore. I have like one story up.

What did you want it to be about?

 

[Nezhul]

They absolutely will.
People'll pay for everything. A drawing, if you can draw, a story, if you can write. Think of it the same way that you may think about on-demand videos that cam girls make. Sometimes, you just want to see/hear/read something particular, a fantasy that you have. And you can pay to make it true.
For example, I can't draw, and there're some fetishes that no porn can be made of. But I can pay an artist to draw a smutty image for me if I need to. Right now I'm looking for an artist to do just that for me.

But for them to want to pay you for writing - you should promote your writing somehow. Just saying you can write is probably not enough.

 

[CandiCame]

They absolutely will.
People'll pay for everything. A drawing, if you can draw, a story, if you can write. Think of it the same way that you may think about on-demand videos that cam girls make. Sometimes, you just want to see/hear/read something particular, a fantasy that you have. And you can pay to make it true.
For example, I can't draw, and there're some fetishes that no porn can be made of. But I can pay an artist to draw a smutty image for me if I need to. Right now I'm looking for an artist to do just that for me.

But for them to want to pay you for writing - you should promote your writing somehow. Just saying you can write is probably not enough.

No, I know artistic commissions are a real thing but like... you have to be trained to draw. You don't really have to be- like the skill set is different. People will pay other people to draw because they don't have the skills to put what is on their head on paper- I actually have a side business that is me doing art commissions. I've also been a camboy. Both of those things require not just specialized skills sets, but also special software, props, a shitton of time and energy, etc. You spend a LOT of money to gain those skills and then to keep them up. When you do digital art commissions, for example, you have to have a tablet, then you have to have a stabilizer usually, specialized software like Sai or photoshop- I actually use both Sai and Manga Studio- Sai for the actual painting and Manga Studio for graphic design aspects like text. That's super, super expensive. People are getting an actual product when you finish that. You spend a fortune and you work your ass off.

If you're gonna have a cam show you have to have a HELL of a mic- that sound quality is important, you have to spend money on lighting kits and a decent camera, you have to build a whole social media presence and pay for things like hosting space if you actually want to keep clients, because you're going to be broadcasting on multiple sites, you have to buy lube and toys and other props, you have to do collabs to keep your channel fresh, you have to buy costumes, you have to do photoshoots for your clients, you have to work your fucking ass off on that job just like any other influencer- with that added bonus of getting doxers and stalkers. You spend a fortune and you work your ass off.

You can write some smut on google docs for free using the basic skills you got in your federally mandated English class. That's why it shocked me that people would pay for it. I've done all three of these things and all writing costs you is time, and like... it's literally a skill you can learn for free. I mean you can take advanced writing classes and shit, but OP isn't talking about hiring a published author who has credentials, they're talking about hiring an amateur. Even amateur artists and camgirls/boys have to buy their tools. You charge a fee even as a beginner or amateur because you're trying to make back the money you spent- you can justify it. And you're putting out a quality product. So the only way I could ever see myself justifying charging to write something is if I could empirically prove that it was a quality product using things like a degree in creative writing or a series of published work that an agent and publishing house looked at and said, "Yes this meets our standard of quality". Not just, "Here look at some samples and if you want it you now have to pay me money" because I just can't figure out how to justify that in my head. I haven't earned that right.

There are people on this site who have earned that, and they have every right to charge for their work because they spent money to get those skills and proved that they are actually skilled enough to do that. They're trained, published authors.

But for someone like me to charge to write some shit down and make it read all pretty like is fucking bizarre to me. What right could I possibly have to ask for payment for that? I write on some sites that have a donation button because yeah, if you feel like it's worth anything throw me a coffee, but to actually have the arrogance to say, "This is worth money" is insane. It costs nothing to start and I can't guarantee they'll get a product they want, so that's gonna be all paypal disputes and bullshit and revision after revision and me with absolutely no ability to say they can't because I don't have a leg to stand on.

I have an art degree. I went to school for that shit. I have portfolios that were judged by accredited experts in their field who looked at that and said, "Yes, you have achieved this skill. You are now an artist. You know how to do this shit, you've spent years of your life under our direct supervision learning this, and now the things you draw look like what they're supposed to look like. You have spent a fucking fortune, to the point that you are still, to this day, paying it off. You best charge for that shit because you owe us something to the tune of $20,000 and Adobe is subscription now and you completely fucked up your teaching career so... good luck out there kid. Get a second degree in something else because this was a terrible life-choice."

And then I was like, "Wow, that was a terrible life choice."

But even if I hadn't done that, even if I hadn't paid for training, I would still have had to pay for materials.

I'm just saying that there is a HUGE financial difference in these two things and that's why it threw me off so bad.

Also because I have just been out here writing for free for years because it genuinely never occurred to me to charge for it.

What did you want someone to draw, btw? I feel like I should do it for free because you did a 'teach a man to fish' by telling me that I could charge to write. I'll pm you some samples of my art. I don't want them all over the internet because I don't do a lot of NSFW shit and I want that to be separate under the name 'CandiCame' and not what I use for my SFW online presence because those two things need to stay different for obvious reasons about the client base.

I just got a message from pornhub that they were hosting speedpaints so if I can get NSFW commissions I'm going to open a pornhub account under the candicame name. I need to build some examples for the NSFW portfolio anyway.

 

[Nezhul]

Don't have time right now to read/reply to the entire post - must run.
But...

People will pay other people to draw because they don't have the skills to put what is on their head on paper

Why do you think stories are any different? Just look at the "Story Ideas" section and see how many people have hot ideas that they want others to put into a story.

It's the same thing. In a way, the story may be even more engaging than a drawing. And in a way, it's much harder to pull off, because you can learn to draw well, but it's much harder to write in an engaging manner that will captivate your readers and fully immerse them for hours.

I can't draw, but at least I have a clear understanding how would I go about it if I wanted to learn. There are lots of tutorials and styles like manga make it more simple to draw good images.
But if I had no clue how to write a novel? Man, I wouldn't know how to start practicing, really.

 

[CandiCame]

Don't have time right now to read/reply to the entire post - must run.
But...
Why do you think stories are any different? Just look at the "Story Ideas" section and see how many people have hot ideas that they want others to put into a story.

It's the same thing. In a way, the story may be even more engaging than a drawing. And in a way, it's much harder to pull off, because you can learn to draw well, but it's much harder to write in an engaging manner that will captivate your readers and fully immerse them for hours.

I can't draw, but at least I have a clear understanding how would I go about it if I wanted to learn. There are lots of tutorials and styles like manga make it more simple to draw good images.
But if I had no clue how to write a novel? Man, I wouldn't know how to start practicing, really.

I disagreed when I got up this morning, but that's when I thought I knew how to build a skillset so at this point I just have to accept that as true. Because I totally thought I knew how to pick up skills for both those things, but I'm big enough to admit when I'm wrong about something. You guys make that dollar, lol.

I'm still not good enough to charge, but I wish you luck, OP!

Edit: I am curious though, about why you singled out "manga" in particular, especially because that's such a huge, varied industry that doesn't have a particular 'style' as being simple. There are huge differences and thousands of subgenres, and Manga artists are some of the most overworked artists in existence- it's really shocking to learn how hard they work. People are worked more or less to death.

https://imgix.***********/user_node_img/50071/1001400442/original/you-only-have-about-three-hours-of-free-time-a-week-_if-you-and-_39_re-lucky_-photo-u2?w=650&q=50&fm=pjpg&fit=crop&crop=faces

Growing up almost all of my favorite artists, those I emulated when finding my style, were MangaKu. And all of them had vastly different styles that I think it would be insane to call "easy" or accessible to beginners.

Naoko Takeuchi, who pioneered the magical girl genre, began her career in fashion design, and it really shows. Her work is similar to that of a fashion designer, with extremely complex fabric layering- you can practically feel the textures.

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/fablacklady.jpg

That's vastly different from someone like Akira Toryama, who is much more focused on dynamic angles, movements, etc, even in still shots. But he was also a favorite artist of mine, someone I emulated when I was a kid interested in art.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--4YVTIADa--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/x7hkd42qzni6sxc60xu9.jpg

I was obsessed with Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and I could pick his animation out, even in films where he wasn't credited. Guy worked for Ghibli long before Eva was even a thing, and his surreal cosmic horror shone through even then. It's in his blood.

I was straight up obsessed with the evas, and I bought his art book because I knew it had anatomical breakdowns I could use to improve my own art.

Then it was in Japanese. Which I don't speak. So... that sucked.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*HzYP7WG656yzTkpe.jpg

To this day I tend to cycle through Ghibli art as my desktop background (on the desktop that my gf and I both use because she's also obsessed with Ghibli) because it's so hauntingly beautiful, it's almost, but not quite, like looking at a photograph.

https://i.redd.it/dhhq7jq71u601.jpg
https://68.media.tumblr.com/3b3997f231ef03256421ee8a0ef1dd6f/tumblr_ndk1auzAnt1u1uleho2_1280.png
https://moyatorium.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/howl-7.png?w=640

Recreating Howl's room, in particular, is so difficult that it's a meme among artists. If you can draw that, the folk lore goes, you can draw anything.

https://www.onceuponapicture.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Lena-Gnedkova-Howls-Room.jpg

https://cdn.inprnt.com/thumbs/ca/cf/cacfa0ee98862da660336d943ea816ed.jpg?response-cache-control=max-age=2628000

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kgHgHAFiI6A/maxresdefault.jpg

Also just completely unrelated but I love Howl in general like literally how I react if I fuck up my bleach job. Which is what he's actually done in this scene.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiB05nt9LjgAhUlVt8KHbMqDogQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https**A**F**Fwww.goodreads.com**Fbook**Fshow**F818806.Howl_s_Moving_Castle_Vol_2&psig=AOvVaw0RnnQFdl9bfbnqsUjKcB30&ust=1550154254920067

 

[Nezhul]

I singled out manga because it has a number of expressive techniques that are rather simple to reproduce, yet yield strong emotional result.
Manga characters are often quite a bit more basic when it comes to drawings - they don't have to have complicated shades and a lot of detail on their faces to look like emotional human that an observer can empathize with.

When you are reading manga or watching a well-drawn anime, those characters feel REAL, even though they are very far from being photorealistic. In compariosn, western Marvel and DC comics often feel less real even though the drawings are much closer to having the right human proportions.

Why's that?
There's a concept that you may be familiar with, called "Uncanny Valley". This concept basically says, that when you add human characteristics to an abstract object, it becomes much more relatable and well-received by an observer. Add two funky eyes and a smiley face to a robot, and it becomes much prettier to look at.
But if you keep improving the realism and bringing your robot closer and closer to human, there comes a moment when the positivity of reaction DROPS almost to the rock bottom. Think of japanese human-like robots and how they feel creepy rather than nice. Wall-e looks much more relatable than them! Or think about Pixar characters - they are all stylized, and feel relatable because of it.
This effect happens because at some point we stop seeing a robot with human features, but start seeing a human who has something very wrong about him. That's how our mind processes images. It's wired to recognize humans.
Then, if you STILL keep improving the realism, you step over that uncanny valley, and the user reception soars again. That happens when your robot (or drawing) becomes so realistic that we see a relatable human behind it - perhaps even a glorified flawless version of human.

Back to manga - it doesn't strive to realism. Instead, it finds a spot just on the edge of uncanny valley - human enough to look good, but stylized enough to not drop into the valley.

 

[CandiCame]

I singled out manga because it has a number of expressive techniques that are rather simple to reproduce, yet yield strong emotional result.
Manga characters are often quite a bit more basic when it comes to drawings - they don't have to have complicated shades and a lot of detail on their faces to look like emotional human that an observer can empathize with.

When you are reading manga or watching a well-drawn anime, those characters feel REAL, even though they are very far from being photorealistic. In compariosn, western Marvel and DC comics often feel less real even though the drawings are much closer to having the right human proportions.

Why's that?
There's a concept that you may be familiar with, called "Uncanny Valley". This concept basically says, that when you add human characteristics to an abstract object, it becomes much more relatable and well-received by an observer. Add two funky eyes and a smiley face to a robot, and it becomes much prettier to look at.
But if you keep improving the realism and bringing your robot closer and closer to human, there comes a moment when the positivity of reaction DROPS almost to the rock bottom. Think of japanese human-like robots and how they feel creepy rather than nice. Wall-e looks much more relatable than them! Or think about Pixar characters - they are all stylized, and feel relatable because of it.
This effect happens because at some point we stop seeing a robot with human features, but start seeing a human who has something very wrong about him. That's how our mind processes images. It's wired to recognize humans.
Then, if you STILL keep improving the realism, you step over that uncanny valley, and the user reception soars again. That happens when your robot (or drawing) becomes so realistic that we see a relatable human behind it - perhaps even a glorified flawless version of human.

Back to manga - it doesn't strive to realism. Instead, it finds a spot just on the edge of uncanny valley - human enough to look good, but stylized enough to not drop into the valley.

Again, strongly disagree and super unsure why you felt you had to explain what the uncanny valley was to anyone. The plug suits alone in Eva, to use one of my other examples, are incredibly difficult to draw, same goes for any of the amazing outfits in the Sailor Moon series. And Toiyama's comics are basically as realistic as anything Marvel or DC produces.

And again, DC and Marvel are not monolyths or particularly realistic. The character models vary with the artist. To say that Western animation and Japanese animation are distinctly different styles but the individual variation within are not is... honestly absurd?

Anime and western art is closely related and borrows from each other all the time. Osamu Tezuka is considered the father of Japanese Anime as we know it today, and his heaviest influences were American cartoons- most notably Disney and Segar.

Here's his literal fanart.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/74/73/63/747363a65a0b25c883d8e32fd34f68d9.jpg

You know how a lot of particularly stylized anime has what's known as a 'side mouth'- that is to save on animation the character's profile doesn't move, rather a mouth is drawn onto a static profile? That's a tip to save on the animation budget ripped right out of Popeye cartoons.

Then Disney ripped off Kimba the White Lion, a movie from Tezuka's studio.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vHps2iC8W3o/maxresdefault.jpg
http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/CTYP+The+Lion+King+James+Spillane.jpg
https://pm1.narvii.com/6456/8b1d39b5e3f4264eb2e0e21f412e55b6b6692636_hq.jpg

Sailor Moon, in particular, was such a huge inspiration for DC that characters from Sailor Mars was ripped off verbatim as disguises for the Martian Manhunter.

http://i.imgur.com/AC8kHoL.jpg

Batman, btws, has had several manga released in Japan, in what I guess you would call a manga style because apparently that's a thing.

So to use a well known example, you're telling me THIS is more uncanny valley

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kjFiB9vReDI/hqdefault.jpg
https://wallpapertag.com/wallpaper/middle/0/3/1/783491-free-batman-gotham-knight-wallpaper-1920x1080.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IhWpUHXrFvw/hqdefault.jpg


Apparently I can't include more than ten images in a post but lord help me I'm on my bullshit so I'm gonna split this post up.

 

[CandiCame]

than this

https://statici.behindthevoiceactors.com/behindthevoiceactors/_img/chars/commissioner-james-gordon-batman-and-mr-freeze-subzero-83.2.jpg
https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/scale_crop_768_433/2017/09/batman_ser468_012c_-_h_2017.jpg
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/batmantheanimatedseries/images/b/b1/PP_20_-_Your_crazy_friend.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150804222402

And I disagree. I love both these shows. They're both very dear to me. I don't think one is more realistic than the other. They're both very well done, gorgeously drawn- and sensibly stylized for the market they were meant to appeal to. One is not necessarily better than the other, and one is not deeper in the uncanny valley than the other. Both Bruces are sexy as hell too- but if I had to pick one me and my friends at the time the anime came out did refer to it exclusively as "Sexy Anime Batman" to the point that I forgot the real name and had to google it.

We also called the Brave and the Bold "Fast Talking High Trousers" and for the life of me I can't remember why and I wish we just called things what they were called.

Likewise, if we're looking at comics I can't, in good conscious concede that this is deeper or shallower in the uncanny valley

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6b/Episode_of_Bardock_cover.png/220px-Episode_of_Bardock_cover.png

Than this

http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/rob-liefeld3.jpg

Again, both stylized, and both completely unrealistic. But I daresay that Toryama's anatomy is actually much closer to reality without entering uncanny valley territory than a lot of western art. So I'll concede that for that ONE particular artist, but it's certainly not universal.

Another of my favorite artists, Otomo I would say does actually hit the uncanny valley, which you're arguing manga artists are trying to avoid, and does so in a hauntingly beautiful way that really brings out a lot of the horror he's trying to showcase with his arguably most well-known work, Akira.

https://hansangel.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/akira-2266479.jpg

I think a lot of Satoshi Kon's work does that too, Perfect Blue I think is the thing that people go to for this, but all of his work has some uncanny valley shit in it, and it's all got a lot of psychological stuff going on that just... is my jam. His work tends to get remade into live-action movies in the states for some reason.

But the stalker from Perfect Blue absolutely comes to mind when I think "uncanny valley". Like almost instantly. It's used to great effect, I think.

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/30/7e/75/307e75bf75fc5e09a49b05b8df36839e--pencil-illustration-ink-illustrations.jpg

 

[CandiCame]

Also like... not for nothing but DC and Marvel are absolutely not closer than ANYTHING to having realistic human proportions. Those two companies have constant backlash about the wonky anatomy they give even their human characters. There's actually a lot of artists who have taken it upon themselves to correct it. I'm not saying that this isn't also an issue in Japanese art, just that it's ludicrous to say that Marvel is closer to human anatomy because it very clearly isn't.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ofqF_mAnBcMoIi07RhR1JhQGQBQ=/0x11:500x386/1200x800/filters:focal(0x11:500x386)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/37299088/tumblr_nal87zmLYR1rnbeuro2_500.0.0.jpg

https://am21.akamaized.net/tms/cnt/uploads/gallery/karine-spider-woman/1.jpg

https://i.redd.it/ld2t3chcqtl11.jpg
(fan art with correct anatomy on the right)

https://attn.imgix.net/superwoman.png?auto=format&crop=faces&fit=crop&q=60&w=736&ixlib=js-1.1.0

https://attn.imgix.net/superwoman_0.jpg?auto=format&crop=faces&fit=crop&q=60&w=736&ixlib=js-1.1.0

Western comics are also stylized. One's not more realistic than the other and I've never heard anyone make this argument before, because there's been a giant push in the industry to move away from that stylization and towards more realistic anatomy- because it isolates a female audience in particular and they're losing readers over it. Guys will read about dudes who look like Cap or Goku, but ladies won't read about women who don't have rib cages or jawbones, an issue in both styles. Likely because women are already pressured more heavily to fit into a beauty standard, and fantasies that draw on that standard sure as hell aren't helping- so at some point it stops being bad anatomy and starts being a moral issue.

There's another issue that comes into play when you talk about stylistic choices in both mediums, and that's same face syndrome. The reason this becomes an issue is the same reason the anatomy thing becomes an issue. Because it can get real ethical, real fast.

Western media:

https://68.media.tumblr.com/c3a6bf95bd94ca57d981dfe2327e27fa/tumblr_n7ansn12tO1tqfjvko1_1280.jpg

Japanese media:

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/37/8d/ab/378dab8ef25f4d93c691a0e0bedb46c3--sailor-moon-r-sailor-mars.jpg

Cross cultural media:

https://masksofmonsters.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/protagonists01.jpg?w=545

Why is this an issue? Well first of all, if every video game has the protagonist, "Idk some white guy" consumers can't tell them apart, which is gonna hurt sales.

But the ethical issue here is that we're saying, as a culture, that only certain facial structures are worthy of representation. That only people who fit into the "same face" box are deserving of being drawn. If you're female, that's people with wide, expressive eyes, small noises, and round faces- all... disturbingly child-like qualities. And if you're male it's 'rugged' faces with strong jaws. I don't think I even need to mention the racial component. Again, one country is not more guilty of this than the other (which I think is what you were saying, that Japan is more likely to do this than the US, but that's empirically not the case) it is just universally just common and also shitty, and we need to move away from it.

So... yeah, TLDR: I respectfully disagree for a bunch of reasons. Sorry it was so long.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You can write some smut on google docs for free using the basic skills you got in your federally mandated English class. That's why it shocked me that people would pay for it. I've done all three of these things and all writing costs you is time, and like... it's literally a skill you can learn for free. I mean you can take advanced writing classes and shit, but OP isn't talking about hiring a published author who has credentials, they're talking about hiring an amateur. Even amateur artists and camgirls/boys have to buy their tools. You charge a fee even as a beginner or amateur because you're trying to make back the money you spent- you can justify it.

IMHO, "I need to eat and somebody values this thing I can make" is all the justification needed to charge a fee. "It only costs time" is an argument used by people who want somebody else to work for free - time is a limited resource! Artists of all stripes ought to avoid internalising that attitude.

Right now, I have two different contacts who both want me to work for them ASAP. Both of them are offering decent money, but there's only one of me; I can't take both jobs unless they can shuffle their schedules around, and whichever job I take, it's going to cut into the time I have for hanging out with friends and other fun stuff. So I absolutely do need to treat my time as something valuable and limited, and writers should do the same.

But for someone like me to charge to write some shit down and make it read all pretty like is fucking bizarre to me. What right could I possibly have to ask for payment for that? I write on some sites that have a donation button because yeah, if you feel like it's worth anything throw me a coffee, but to actually have the arrogance to say, "This is worth money" is insane. It costs nothing to start and I can't guarantee they'll get a product they want, so that's gonna be all paypal disputes and bullshit and revision after revision and me with absolutely no ability to say they can't because I don't have a leg to stand on.

That still happens to professionally trained artists, though. I know a few people who went to art school and did commission work, and they still have to go to trouble to avoid that sort of thing - payment up front, portfolios online so the customer knows the kind of thing they're paying for, written agreements about revisions.

No matter how much or how little you spent on learning your craft and on the supplies you need for it, there will never be a shortage of people ready to trash your work and tell you it's not worth a cent. You can go to school for decades and be a fuckin' climate scientist or a doctor who vaccinates kids against polio and there will STILL be people who think you're a fraud who shouldn't be paid for what you do. As an artist of any flavour, it's not your responsibility to make the case that those people are already making; you have the right to offer your work for money, and if somebody likes it enough to pay for it, never feel guilty about that.

 

[Jing83]

I have literally been begged to write more smut, offered money, once even ordered by a Mistress.

I just can't. Can't produce anything under pressure. I don't have a logical explanation. The well is shallow for me to begin with. Supposedly my writing is quite good, which would be shameless bragging except that I'm using it to highlight the tragedy of the fact that I'm an artist who doesn't art.

I very much appreciate those who can.

It has to be enjoyable to be art.

 

[Nezhul]

I have literally been begged to write more smut, offered money, once even ordered by a Mistress.

I just can't. Can't produce anything under pressure.

I personally don't view it as pressure but as a fun challenge. People ask me to write a certain scene and my imagination starts going around their request, thinking of how to dress it up the way I like it.

 

[CandiCame]

IMHO, "I need to eat and somebody values this thing I can make" is all the justification needed to charge a fee. "It only costs time" is an argument used by people who want somebody else to work for free - time is a limited resource! Artists of all stripes ought to avoid internalising that attitude.

Right now, I have two different contacts who both want me to work for them ASAP. Both of them are offering decent money, but there's only one of me; I can't take both jobs unless they can shuffle their schedules around, and whichever job I take, it's going to cut into the time I have for hanging out with friends and other fun stuff. So I absolutely do need to treat my time as something valuable and limited, and writers should do the same.



That still happens to professionally trained artists, though. I know a few people who went to art school and did commission work, and they still have to go to trouble to avoid that sort of thing - payment up front, portfolios online so the customer knows the kind of thing they're paying for, written agreements about revisions.

No matter how much or how little you spent on learning your craft and on the supplies you need for it, there will never be a shortage of people ready to trash your work and tell you it's not worth a cent. You can go to school for decades and be a fuckin' climate scientist or a doctor who vaccinates kids against polio and there will STILL be people who think you're a fraud who shouldn't be paid for what you do. As an artist of any flavour, it's not your responsibility to make the case that those people are already making; you have the right to offer your work for money, and if somebody likes it enough to pay for it, never feel guilty about that.

Yeah, you're right. I think, in retrospect, the reason it shocked me so badly was because they came to Lit and cast that wide of a net. Lit is a place where anyone can post, even someone like me who has never had any real training, never had anything published, has only the basic grasp of writing as a craft, etc. That's what threw me off so bad. To me, a place like that is somewhere one would be like, "Here's a story prompt if anyone wants to write it for free".

It's not a database of professional writers like some places are, so I was really shocked that someone would come here, to a more open-source place, and offer payment. Because yes, there absolutely are real writers on Lit, but there are also people like me who can't write for shit and are here literally for the practice, to hone their craft and learn how to do that. So if time is money, the OP is going to wind up spending a fortune trying to seperate that wheat from the chaft because there's no quality control at all.

I talked about that a little bit in my other post, and I think people are reading me the wrong way. When I was comparing prices for start-ups, I meant for people who WERE just starting up. As someone who is, again, not a real writer, the idea that anyone would pay me is absurd, no matter how long I spent on the piece, because it would not be a quality product. And the customer would have EVERY right to get mad and demand their money back, or demand revision after revision trapping us both in a never-ending-hell-loop, and it would be all arguments and paypal disputes and nonsense. I couldn't justify charging someone for something that I did for free on google docs, with no quality guarantee.

And this site lets people like me write here. So it really threw me that this was a place someone would go to to post this sort of thing. When I made that first post, trying to figure that out, you'll notice that I used first person singular pronouns. I was talking about me. But there are others like me, because again, it's open source and community driven. It seems like it's more content control than quality control.

I think you actually have books published and stuff, so it makes perfect sense that you would charge for your work. There are real authors on here. But there are also amateurs who have no business charging- if you want to be an ethical person it really isn't as simple as, "someone is willing to pay for it so I charged them money" because that's what scammers do. You have to set a quality standard for yourself, because no one else is going to do that for you. Just because other people are willing to buy shit doesn't mean you should sell it to them.

I mean, I do art commissions and I still put up free shit- because I'm not going to charge someone for shit, and sometimes a piece just doesn't turn out the way you wanted regardless of how much time you put into it. Because that's the ethical thing to do. And I've been to art school and whatnot. They're absolutely not paying for your time, they're paying for a product. People who think people are paying for their time are the kinds of people who lose clients real fast and watch that patreon dwindle to nothing. You sell your piece for what it's worth and make up the extra doing the lifestream of you making it, the speedpaint that you made from that livestream, and prints/designs from somewhere like redbubble or etsy.

Because if you're really charging for your time, you're talking like... hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Especially if they want a lot of revisions. I've spent five days just sending sketches back and forth before, on a project that honestly wasn't worth more than like $20 bucks because it was a fanart wedding sampler- Kirby fanart. I'm not charging somebody $300 for a pink circle in a top hat. Because I'm not a monster and also because that's insane- even though altogether it took me about a week because this dude did not know how feedback worked. Literally just kept saying, "MAKE IT PINKER".

Having said that, I do hope OP found an author they liked!

And I'm sorry I derailed the thread to go on an art rant.

In my defense, the two things are tangentially related and I know more about how art commissions work, but it was still off-topic at the end of the day.

 

[Nezhul]

The best of the writers never got any formal training. And they too, at one point, were people who had nothing published yet.

Training doesn't make you a writer. No one can teach you to be a writer. Best case scenario they give you some reference and some knowledge of literature and language skills to empower you to write.

But becoming a writer? You can only make it yourself on your own, with zero published novels and zero people knowing about you.

 

[AlwaysFara]

I’m best friends with (one of) the best writer(s)on Lit. He’s a published author. Let me know if you want me to contact him.
I don’t know if he would be interested, but I’ll let him know.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Yeah, you're right. I think, in retrospect, the reason it shocked me so badly was because they came to Lit and cast that wide of a net. Lit is a place where anyone can post, even someone like me who has never had any real training, never had anything published, has only the basic grasp of writing as a craft, etc. That's what threw me off so bad. To me, a place like that is somewhere one would be like, "Here's a story prompt if anyone wants to write it for free".

Oh absolutely, I certainly wouldn't recommend promising money for a commission story before checking out the writer's previous work. But I think that advice would hold even if this place was restricted to people with a Master's in creative writing - style and tastes are so variable, all the qualifications in the world are no guarantee that they're the right author for me.

I think you actually have books published and stuff, so it makes perfect sense that you would charge for your work.

I'm not quite in that league. I've self-pubbed some of my stories on Smashwords (mostly as a tip jar for my stories here), but anybody can do that (and do they ever...) I've contributed short pieces to a few RPG collections in exchange for money and product, and I have some technical papers etc. out there, but I've never been a major author on a trad-pubbed book. My main involvement with traditional publishing is as a freelance editor - primarily specialist technical stuff, but these days they also pay me to do basic spelling/grammar/etc.

I will probably never write commission stories here. Not that I have objections, just that the time I'd need to write even a fairly short story would mean foregoing about $1k of editing work, so I'd have to charge accordingly. I doubt anybody will ever consider that good value for money, not when there are plenty of excellent writers who'll work for much cheaper... but in the unlikely event that somebody said "I want a Bramble story and I'm willing to pay that much for it", and they're an adult of reasonably sound mind, I don't see it as my responsibility to talk my value down.

There are real authors on here. But there are also amateurs who have no business charging- if you want to be an ethical person it really isn't as simple as, "someone is willing to pay for it so I charged them money" because that's what scammers do. You have to set a quality standard for yourself, because no one else is going to do that for you. Just because other people are willing to buy shit doesn't mean you should sell it to them.

To me, a scammer is somebody who doesn't deliver what the customer thought they were getting - either they don't deliver at all, or the quality/quantity is far below what they led the customer to believe, that kind of thing. If the customer has read the writer's previous work, before commissioning a piece, and the commission quality is consistent with that with content according to customer's specs, I don't see an issue of misrepresentation. The author can decide what standards they want to follow, and the buyer can decide whether those standards are acceptable. It's not like buying a car that has hidden defects; with writing, what you see is pretty much what you get.

I might wonder why on earth the customer is willing to pay somebody who, in my opinion, doesn't write very well. But maybe the things that matter to that customer aren't the same things that matter to me.

I mean, I do art commissions and I still put up free shit- because I'm not going to charge someone for shit, and sometimes a piece just doesn't turn out the way you wanted regardless of how much time you put into it. Because that's the ethical thing to do. And I've been to art school and whatnot. They're absolutely not paying for your time, they're paying for a product. People who think people are paying for their time are the kinds of people who lose clients real fast and watch that patreon dwindle to nothing. You sell your piece for what it's worth and make up the extra doing the lifestream of you making it, the speedpaint that you made from that livestream, and prints/designs from somewhere like redbubble or etsy.

The customer isn't paying for your time, nor for your degree costs or art supplies, but that doesn't mean you can't charge for all those things. Pricing theory is complicated, but it's basically a compromise between how much the buyer values the product and how much it takes to make it worth the producer's while. And sometimes the value the buyer puts on it is less than the cost to the producer... in which case, the best answer is "no sale".

An artist certainly shouldn't expect a customer to say "oh, this took you 100 hours, I'll pay you more for it!" but they should very much be willing to decide "this is going to take me 100 hours, so I'm not going to do it for less than $XXX".

Because if you're really charging for your time, you're talking like... hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Especially if they want a lot of revisions. I've spent five days just sending sketches back and forth before, on a project that honestly wasn't worth more than like $20 bucks because it was a fanart wedding sampler- Kirby fanart. I'm not charging somebody $300 for a pink circle in a top hat. Because I'm not a monster and also because that's insane- even though altogether it took me about a week because this dude did not know how feedback worked. Literally just kept saying, "MAKE IT PINKER".

If that customer contacted you again, asking you to do the same kind of project again for the same money, would you take the deal? Twenty dollars, knowing that it was going to chew up five days of your time?

And I'm sorry I derailed the thread to go on an art rant.

In my defense, the two things are tangentially related and I know more about how art commissions work, but it was still off-topic at the end of the day.

Eh, threads drift. As long as OP doesn't mind the digression, it's an interesting topic (to me, at least!) Probably more appropriate to Authors' Hangout than here, but then that applies to the whole thread, not just this tangent.

 

[CandiCame]

If that customer contacted you again, asking you to do the same kind of project again for the same money, would you take the deal? Twenty dollars, knowing that it was going to chew up five days of your time?

I didn't quote the whole thing because you're absolutely right about pretty much all of it, and it would just be me going, "True dat" a bunch of times. So I'll cover it all in one collective "true dat" but I wanted to address this because I feel like it gets to the core of what I was talking about.

Yes, I absolutely would work with him again.

This dude was a pain in the ass, no doubt. But it was for his wedding, and I get being a pain in the ass about something you're giving your husband on your wedding day. I have a hard time faulting anyone for that.

And he was super polite and grateful. AND he apparently screened the speedpaint to pretty much every single person he knew, so I got the ad revenue from that AND sold a bunch of duplicates from my etsy- so in the end I've more than made my money back. He absolutely did not have to do that- I wouldn't even do that.

For context, this wasn't just a digital painting, I also do textile art, so it was the painting, the pixel art, and an embroidery pattern. I'm selling those patterns. He could have just shared the one he already had. He absolutely did not have to tell people to buy it- but he did tell people to buy it, and he talked me up. I made a contact that brought in increased passive revenue.

So as big of a pain as he was, he was, at the end of the day, a nice guy. And because I have a day job and this isn't my primary source of income, and doing color swaps really only takes like... 20 minutes on a piece that simple, the 5 days wasn't me working for five straight days, it was mostly waiting to hear back from him.

So all in all, yeah, it was time consuming, but my time is literally worthless. Like I have an anxiety disorder (you might remember from the mental health thread) so I literally HAVE to have something to do with my hands all the time. That's why I bounce on and off the internet all day. I did those recolors on my laptop while I watched my kid run around outside, or watched TV, or listened to podcasts, or whatever. The great thing about freelance work on something like art, is that as long as your computer and drawing tablet are portable, you can do that shit anywhere.

Are therapy is great for people with mania, it works on the same principle as fidget spinners. As long as you have the education to know what you're doing with your eyes and your hands, you can use it to get rid of that energy that makes your life so shitty, because it's not something that you have to pay super good attention to, so it actually uses that energy and helps you focus. That's why teachers are dicks for taking points off when students draw in the margins. That's some actual, "Hurting people with disabilities" shit and it kills me. I don't know why teachers THINK those are there, but it's because you won't let people have scrap paper on their desk during tests and they need to fucking focus.

Lord help you though, you don't realize how bad your hands shake until you watch it on a speedpaint and see the cursor vibrate. Because it literally like... vibrates. It gets shakeweighty, lol.

This is actually why adult coloring books are a thing, btw. Stress causes mania- you don't have to be neurodivergent to have it. I can't sleep at night because I'm neurodivergent and my brain just produces too much of the stress hormones to be a dick, but some people produce those hormones because they're neurotypical, but they have stressors in their life. So these same principles apply even to neurotypical people in a lot of situations. And you can do the coloring books regardless of your skill level, and I am so happy that became a trend because now nobody can call me out on it. Folks realizing that even neurotypical folks can benefit from the things neurodivergent folks use is always a good thing.

I've heard that the same thing is true for writing, that it's thereputic, and not just because a laptop by itself is easier to carry around than a laptop with the tablet and pen and everything. Sometimes you can read a piece of fiction and you'll literally think, "Jesus Christ, author, who hurt you?"

And again, it's especially good for people with mania or other kinds of neurodivergence that causes excess energy or attention difficulty. I can use myself as an example again. You have no idea how happy I am that I can mostly communicate through text now. You see how long-winded I am? I speak exactly like I write. But I talk really, really fast, because my brain doesn't work properly, and my thoughts move faster than other people can take in and retain. So I went to speech therapy and my parents got me voice lessons to learn how to sing and learn about time signatures and shit- and now I can actually talk like a human person.

But it's hard. It's really hard. Because my brain didn't actually slow down. So my brain is like three topics ahead of what I'm actually saying, at all times, and I have to remember what it is I'm ACTUALLY saying, and not get confused, and if I have a prepreapared lesson plan or speech or notes or something, that's not difficult, but if I'm making that shit up on the fly I will still, to this day, as a grown ass adult- sometimes stop mid sentence and have to remember what it is I'm saying.

But you can write that shit out at the speed you think it, and then people can read it at their own pace. Nobody is standing over your shoulder watching you type out 100+ words a minute. This is especially great for people who had even more severe speech difficulties related to mania than I did, because a lot of times those folks will go straight non-verbal because no matter how many speech therapists or music lessons they have, it just never clicks. But they can sure as fuck carry a tablet around and type out on it then use the text-to-speech software.

My point is that a lot of people get more than just money for the things they've got up for commission, so for folks like me it's even more difficult to justify charging for time, because the time you spend on that is actually helpful to you, for a plethora of reasons that can vary for the individual.

So would I work for this guy again, even though he technically wasn't worth my time? Absolutely. I hope he comes back. Freelance work is heavily influenced by repeat customers and referrals.

Having said that, I am going to cut way back because I've had three bad experiences in a row, and it's not my primary source of income, and I'm not going to do it if it adds stress. I know art theft is a problem for everyone, but Jesus Christ this asshole-

I'm not gonna get into it. It's off-topic. I typed out a thing but I realized it had nothing to do with anything.

I bet that comes up in writing, too, though. I bet people steal the shit out of things they've commissioned and don't understand what publishing rights are.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I didn't quote the whole thing because you're absolutely right about pretty much all of it, and it would just be me going, "True dat" a bunch of times. So I'll cover it all in one collective "true dat" but I wanted to address this because I feel like it gets to the core of what I was talking about.

Yes, I absolutely would work with him again.

This dude was a pain in the ass, no doubt. But it was for his wedding, and I get being a pain in the ass about something you're giving your husband on your wedding day. I have a hard time faulting anyone for that.

And he was super polite and grateful. AND he apparently screened the speedpaint to pretty much every single person he knew, so I got the ad revenue from that AND sold a bunch of duplicates from my etsy- so in the end I've more than made my money back. He absolutely did not have to do that- I wouldn't even do that.

For context, this wasn't just a digital painting, I also do textile art, so it was the painting, the pixel art, and an embroidery pattern. I'm selling those patterns. He could have just shared the one he already had. He absolutely did not have to tell people to buy it- but he did tell people to buy it, and he talked me up. I made a contact that brought in increased passive revenue.

Cool. Yeah, in that case, where you're retaining rights to the work and getting some actual benefit from the "for exposure", that's certainly relevant to how much you charge. And nice guy discounts/asshole tariffs are absolutely a thing.

I wonder how those secondary sales that you're describing for art compare to the secondary sales for commission writing. I don't have any data so I'm purely guessing here, but I suspect the market might be tougher for writing, which would also factor into pricing.

I'm gonna migrate the rest of my response to the Mental Health thread, in case anybody else who follows that thread is interested in this stuff.