Anyone ever do commissions?

[greenbriefs]

I just received a message from someone asking to pay me to write a story. Has anyone here ever done this? How much do you charge? How do you get paid? I don't love the idea of handing out any personal info in order to receive a payment.

I'd be very grateful to hear from anyone why would like to share their experiences.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I do such work through a few sites on the net. But if I get requests from here or other writing sites, I have them pay through my publisher/editor. Most don't want to pay what it costs but I can't afford to make less working for them than my other sources.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I don't love the idea of handing out any personal info in order to receive a payment.

You could ask for a donation to a charity of your choice.

 

[MillieDynamite]

And the cost is determined by what their requirements are. However, I have a $250 dollar minimum even if I'm free to publish for resale.

 

[KeithD]

I haven't done paid commission work for erotica. Don't want to give out any payout personal information and I don't give up full artistic control over what I write. I've sometimes written a story to someone's plot layout and request for a story--but the resulting story always is what I do with whatever information is given me.

 

[Bamagan]

I've done a few. I can't advise on appropriate rates, as that depends on you and the other party coming to some kind of agreement on what your time is worth, which also depends on how long of a story they're asking for and how much editorial control they expect. In my case they made a donation to a ko-fi page I have, but there are a number of platforms that allow semi-anonymous tipping or transfers. You could also set up a 'business' email for paypal (or whatever) and to handle the transfer of the commission, if you choose to accept it.

 

[MillieDynamite]

As always, should you decide to accept this commission, MS Writer, should you be caught or captured as the ghostee, the ghostor will deny your participation in his or her project.

 

[AchtungNight]

I’ve written stories by request but not for money, not so far. Not sure I ever will do it. The ethics of writing fanfic are sketchy and I want to keep all my work connected as much as I can, even the ones that concentrate on original characters. Creative control is important too. I would never allow another person creative control of my work no matter how much they paid me. I’d have to put my own spin on their ideas and make them compatible with my personal writing kinks.

If someone is ok with that and wants a story bad enough (and they feel I can best write it), well, I do have Google pay. Privately message me and we can discuss it. I take payment up front, no refunds, and the idea has to interest me before I agree.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I used to do this as well. But since my writing time is limited, and I make money from my work, I don't don't write for free anymore. Most of the stories I put here were up for sale before they were placed here. Star Wars is just fantasy. The Lord of the Rings is just fantasy. Fantasy pays some people quite well. I would never say fantasy isn't a valid form, sexual or otherwise. You don't have to write for money to consider your work as valuable. Certainly, if someone reads your work and enjoys it, it has value to them.

I've written one story free of charge.
For me Literotica is just a fantasy site and I wouldn't charge.

 

[greenbriefs]

Thanks for the replies so far. The only reason I'm even considering it is because I could use the money. Otherwise, yeah, it's a very personal thing for me to write a story and I can't imagine how it would go down if I were writing for someone else. Especially this request to continue a series I'm still writing.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I've done a request on FFN, to which I was kinda honored I got asked, but I've never done a commission. As far as here, I wrote three from Story Ideas.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Anyone ever do commissions?​

I guess commission suggests money. In which case, no.

I did write one story based on a request. Mostly as the guy asking was a) known to me, b) liked my work, c) gave me close to free rein, d) could explain why he thought I was the person to write it. Oh and he asked very nicely as well.

I think I’d feel a fraud charging for my writing. I’m not that good and it’s not like it’s real work.

Em

 

[AllenWoody]

I've never done a commission, but I'm tempted to do one just to say "I got paid to write!"

However, I'm not sure I could handle writing to someone else's specs. The few times I've been asked to write a story for someone here (no mention of a commission) they were very specific in ways that I didn't find erotic at all. I don't need the money, so it would be a waste of my time and creative energies. The exception might be if the idea was appealing to me and I was given considerable creative control.

 

[greenbriefs]

I think I’d feel a fraud charging for my writing. I’m not that good and it’s not like it’s real work.

I totally get where you're coming from, but if someone is willing to pay you, then you are good enough. I draw NSFW stuff, and I don't think I'm very good, but a few years ago someone asked me to draw a few things, and I gladly did it. I got a couple hundred dollars out of it.

 

[Altissimus]

You could ask for an Amazon voucher, which only requires you to present an e-mail address. This could be a random gmail account if you so wished.

 

[Devinter]

And the cost is determined by what their requirements are. However, I have a $250 dollar minimum even if I'm free to publish for resale.

About the same for me. I wrote one for 200 euro's (about 210ish American dollars?) because it was short - below 3k words - but otherwise I charge between 250 and 400 for a story around 10-15k words. And that includes me also being allowed to upload it here, or selling it somewhere else afterwards. I also only accept requests where I still have free reign over 90% or more of the story; I can work with their prompt (and their fetishes when writing Erotica, of course) but I don't want them to give me an entire synopsis to follow. Takes all the fun out of it otherwise.

I get paid through PayPal, and most of the time I have them pay in advance. In the price I also include small corrections and changes that they may want after the work is finished. In case there's a part they really want removed, extended, or something along those lines. Simple stuff.

PayPal does allow you to hide your name with a little bit of finessing, but you have to set it up specifically for this purpose, and run it through a business or under a pseudonym.

I also do a lot of free requests, and each person that beta reads and edits for me gets a free story of their choice written in due time! Paid commissions (and Literotica competitions) gets priority in the queue, though!

 

[MillieDynamite]

I think my rate is slightly higher in American Dollars, but I don't know the exchange rate. I charge on a per-word basis with a minimum of 2500 words. The cost for most of the blogs and podcast scripts is determined by the websites I work through. The cost of my fiction ghostwriting was negotiated a long time ago and has had adjustments over the past year. But my bread and butter are blogs and podcast scripts. I'm not crazy about writing to other people's plots, outlines, and kinks for here, but I'd do it for my regular per-word price. If I get to publish it elsewhere under my own pen, I do it for less. But even that price seems to be too much for the inquiries here, which is fine with me.

About the same for me. I wrote one for 200 euro's (about 210ish American dollars?) because it was short - below 3k words - but otherwise I charge between 250 and 400 for a story around 10-15k words. And that includes me also being allowed to upload it here, or selling it somewhere else afterwards. I also only accept requests where I still have free reign over 90% or more of the story; I can work with their prompt (and their fetishes when writing Erotica, of course) but I don't want them to give me an entire synopsis to follow. Takes all the fun out of it otherwise.

I get paid through PayPal, and most of the time I have them pay in advance. In the price I also include small corrections and changes that they may want after the work is finished. In case there's a part they really want removed, extended, or something along those lines. Simple stuff.

PayPal does allow you to hide your name with a little bit of finessing, but you have to set it up specifically for this purpose, and run it through a business or under a pseudonym.

I also do a lot of free requests, and each person that beta reads and edits for me gets a free story of their choice written in due time! Paid commissions (and Literotica competitions) gets priority in the queue, though!

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I've done one commission for a friend, a darker retelling of Little Red Riding hood. It doesn't take me anything at all to write, I'm not using anything but time, so my set rate is $2.50 per hour for commissions. I feel that's more than fair. Took a few days to work the story, easy $45 for a quick piece of work around a 20K word count. I took the payment via PayPal, and since I knew the individual requesting the story, it didn't bother me to give out a bit of personal information.

People pay some $20 for a full 100K+ paper novel these days so I'm not going to price gouge for a smut novella that's not even a physical piece of work, and I feel by establishing reasonable rates for commissions I'd be more likely to build better repertoire with potential clients. But commission work isn't an aggressive focus of mine. I've turned down one recently because I just didn't have the time. You do end up with constraints regarding the nature of the work (time, plot, etcetera) depending on the specifications of the client and so on... so I don't feel pressured to do commissions and prefer to focus on my publishing endeavors.

That said I do know people who make some $200+ for short stories and have repeat customers. People will gladly pay for what they want. If that's what you're interested in doing, go for it! There are ways around having to put yourself out there personally to receive compensation.

I use CashApp for other businesses I dabble in (candle making, wire wrapped crystal jewelry). Super fast, super easy, no need to give out your name, direct link to your bank account, bank statements and then some. It's free to set up with CashApp and you'll have a card you can use by the end of the week. Or, as I said, connect it to you bank account and you can send your earnings right over with no hassle.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I got a request from someone via the feedback function, a couple of months ago. He wanted me to do his MILF next-door story because my stuff swings in that direction. I told him that I really wasn't interested because I have a job, a farm, and other stuff that sucks up my time, and what free time I have, I want to do my stories.

Then he wanted to try to convince me with money, and I told him he'd have to match my current hourly salary with a minimum of twenty hours, to even consider it. At that point, he thought it was time to haggle and I just sent his emails straight to trash after that.

Maybe someday when I'm retired, I'd consider it, but it would have to be a really cool idea.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I used to do this as well. But since my writing time is limited, and I make money from my work, I don't don't write for free anymore. Most of the stories I put here were up for sale before they were placed here. Star Wars is just fantasy. The Lord of the Rings is just fantasy. Fantasy pays some people quite well. I would never say fantasy isn't a valid form, sexual or otherwise. You don't have to write for money to consider your work as valuable. Certainly, if someone reads your work and enjoys it, it has value to them.

Yeah I don't blame you. When I was writing that story request it took months of getting in with my own shit I was writing. This mother fucker better like this, I said more than once. I actually love the story, though. I'd have loved to gotten paid for it.