Writing Commissions, is that a thing?

[Poetic Justice 170]

So, if anypony of you know me
(Let's be honest, probably not)

You would know I am a rainbow horse writer on FIMfiction.

Well, I am in a tight spot and could use some extra money, and my friend suggested "Why not do commissions on your writing?"

To which I replied, "NO ONE IS GOING TO PAY FOR THAT."

 

The more I thought about it, I guess it is possible, and here is what I thought up.

 

$2-Guaranteed 2,000 words with a max of 2 characters (OC or Canon). You can pick the setting and plot. I will revise it twice for free.
$.50 for extra character and $1 for another 1,000 word minimum

 

 

I still think this idea is flimsy, but I suppose it could work. Is this something some of you would consider?


Oh yea, I should mention that this Topic is *NOT* about submitting commission stuff. This is only an idea I would like to know work and flesh out before officially doing it.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Poetic Justice

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

I'm going to have to be honest with you. It's not something I myself would consider, and I don't think it's something many others would consider either.

 

I've seen someone else try this idea, and it completely failed on them. Nobody would buy it. Why, you might wonder? There are several reasons I can postulate.

 

First off, unlike drawing pictures or music, writing is something that anyone can do. We are taught writing in school and have it hammered into our brains for all of those years. I will give you this; most people can't do it well. But most people don't seem to care about the quality. A lot of people just write for fun, and I don't think they'd want to pay someone else to do it for them. Here on the internet, writing is the primary form of communication. There's also the fact that they wouldn't want to pay someone else to use their ideas and would rather do it themselves. Even if I don't necessarily find the writing process to be fun myself, I would rather materialize my ideas on my own.

 

Writing isn't as visually impressive either. It doesn't have the sensory pizzazz that drawing or making music does. 

 

I don't say these things to denounce writing or call it worthless. I myself am a writer and can plenty appreciate the value of a well-written story. It is very important to hone this skill, and people who are good at it are valuable to society. It's just that writing isn't something that would work in a commissions system. Writers are hired and paid for TV shows, movies, video games, etc. For visual media. Either that, or they are paid for published books/stories that they created from their own creative thoughts.

 

If you want to be paid for writing, I'd recommend just creating something on your own that a lot of people want to see more of, and then opening a Patreon for additional content. If it's successful enough, people will pay you to see more of your ideas, your world, and your characters. But only open one if your story becomes popular.

 

Good luck, and godspeed. I hope you find your extra money outlet somehow. I know I'm still trying to find my own.

[碇 シンジン 27,439]

I'm not a writer myself and I can't write quite well and I don't read much.but I think that it might be a little hard on getting money by this way because then your writings should stand out compared to others that are free and I think they should contain something special. Which can be hard to achieve with writing. I don't know about others but I've never spent anything on written texts, but I really like to read good stories.

 

If your stories have that feeling and emotion and that spark this could work, but those great stories aren't written quickly.

[HereComesTom 2,270]

I dunno whether commissioned fanfics would work---I can understand the points about why it might now.  But that Patreon things looks amazing.  I'm glad I clicked in this thread!

 

I wonder if Patreon would work better for you if you collaborated with an artist to do some illustrations---maybe one illustration per chapter or something?  It's a thought.