Need Writer - Paid (Closed)

For recruitment of team members to help create visual novels and story-based games, and for people who want to offer their services to create the same.
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Yukari
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Need Writer - Paid (Closed)

#1 Post by Yukari »

I need a good writer for my commercial VN Kako no Koi. The genre is BxG Romance, Drama, Mystery and a bit Comedy.
He/She should have knowledge about japan especially about japanese urban legends like Hanako from the toilet.
I don't have a number for words, only the playtime which is about 20 h.
Since I don't how much writing is worth just PM me with an offer and writing examples.
Edit: Found one
Last edited by Yukari on Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Need Writer - Paid

#2 Post by KomiTsuku »

Yukari wrote:I need a good writer for my VN Kako no Koi. The genre is BxG Romance, Drama, Mystery and a bit Comedy.
He/She should have knowledge about japan especially about japanese urban legends like Hanako from the toilet.
I don't have a number for words, only the playtime which is about 20 h.
Since I don't how much writing is worth just PM me with an offer and writing examples.
A good way to figure out estimated word count is hours times 15k-20k (average reading speeds per hour). So what you'd need is around 300k to 400k, though that also depends on the number of routes, reused script, ect.

Sadly, I'm too busy to help. Good luck though!

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Re: Need Writer - Paid

#3 Post by Caveat Lector »

When you say you need a writer, do you mean someone who can write segments of the game? A consultant on Japanese urban legends?
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Re: Need Writer - Paid

#4 Post by Rune Lai »

KomiTsuku wrote:
Yukari wrote: Since I don't how much writing is worth just PM me with an offer and writing examples.
A good way to figure out estimated word count is hours times 15k-20k (average reading speeds per hour). So what you'd need is around 300k to 400k, though that also depends on the number of routes, reused script, ect.

Sadly, I'm too busy to help. Good luck though!
If I wasn't barred by a conflict of interest issue with my day job, I'd like to jump into something like this, especially if it's paid, but since you don't know how much writing is worth or how long the script needs to be, and Komi put up a word estimate for playtime, I thought you might want some numbers. This may be important if you intend to sell this as a commercial product (which I think you might be doing judging from the comments in your link).

When I write professionally, I accept a baseline of $0.06 US per word (it's the soon to be accepted standard in the science fiction and fantasy fiction writing community, bumping it up from the old $0.05/word). Payment by the word is important because the more a writers writes, the more they should be paid. If you had a script that is 300k-400k (which, by the way, is the size of a Game of Thrones book) you'd be looking at upwards of $18000. It sounds like a lot of money, but you probably want whoever you hire to write a 300k-400k monster to do it in less than a year, which would require a lot of time and sacrifice because living off $18000 for a year's work is not a lifestyle most people can take so your hypothetical writer will probably be holding down another job. Writing at NaNoWriMo speeds, 300k-400k would take a writer 6-8 months to draft, and then probably 2-3 months after to edit. It's a very time-intensive demand. Some people can do it, but those who can (and do it well), usually write full-time for a living and can ask for much higher than the baseline pay.

I know you didn't mention how quickly you wanted the script, but since it seems like you don't know much about the requirements for the job, this gives you an idea of the time involved.

You can make compromises, such as making the game shorter, reusing a lot of the script for the different branches, or paying less. You probably won't get anyone with professional experience if you pay less, but there are definitely skilled amateur writers out there who might be willing to do it for love of the genre, or a chance to get a writing credit. (At my worst payrate when I was in college and just starting out, you could extrapolate my requested pay to $750, but I probably would have turned it down due to the time commitment. Writing your own stuff for cheap is more fun that writing someone else's for cheap. My college self would also need three years to write 300k-400k words because she's not as fast as I am now.) Or you could get creative. A writer of any stripe might take a smaller fee in exchange for a share of the profits.

By the way, I apologize if I sound very blunt in this post. I am very glad that you are offering to pay your writer, but combined with Komi's post I don't think you knew what you were asking and I don't like the idea of some poor writer writing something the length of a of GoT book for a few bucks.

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Yukari
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Re: Need Writer - Paid

#5 Post by Yukari »

Thank you for your infos!
I really underestimated the price ^^"
It don't have to be a professional writer and it have to be written in 1 year but the example of $18000 is way more than I can offer. I hoped I'd get something for about $1000.
Really shoking that writing cost a lot more than good art.
My only problem is that my own writing isn't good enough for commercial games and I already payed a lot money for arts, music etc and it would be reallya waste to cancel it or offer it for free :/
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Re: Need Writer - Paid

#6 Post by Asceai »

20 hours is massive. Why not consider cutting that down instead? It's already longer than much of the existing library of OELVNs. And yeah, writing is the most expensive part of making a VN. Zepy (Canned Dogs) basically confirmed this is true on the Japanese side as well, unless you're making something with a really expensive artist; at a million yen for every megabyte of text it adds up quickly - and you're going to go into a few megabytes of text. A typical Japanese VN with a 20 hour scenario will have over 100 CGs - that's unique CGs, not counting variations - and will sell for full price (8800 yen plus tax).

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Re: Need Writer - Paid

#7 Post by Googaboga »

If the game is going to be commercial you need to make that clear in the first post. It is important people know that right away, plus it is a rule when it comes to recruitment threads.

Maybe you could offer a skill trade to help offset the monetary price. Or maybe you could write the script yourself and hire someone to improve it rather than paying for someone to write the entire thing from scratch. However even if you do take those options I imagine you'll still need to cut the play time down pretty significantly, especially because people charge more for work that goes in a commercial game.

Good luck c:
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Re: Need Writer - Paid

#8 Post by lemuel »

I would gladly serve an as editor for whatever story you could write up, also providing comments about the quality of the narrative, for a very reasonable price. Although I confess that I am not familiar with Japanese legends, years of experience as a student has given me great skill as a researcher, and I could easily but your person to research various legends and just how they could be incorporated into your story. If you are interested in my proposal, please let me know via PM.

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Re: Need Writer - Paid (Closed)

#9 Post by Yukari »

Thanks for the offers! I found a writer ^^ Thread can be closed
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