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So you're offering around 0.3 cents per word as a starting payment.
With no guarantees there ever will be more for any individual writer.
Maybe eventually deciding for one of them as your partner, giving them an unspecified "chunk" of your Patreon earnings.

And you call that "professional writing"?

As a semi-pro writer of all sorts of smut, my opinion is that this is a terrible deal. You're severely underpaying people (Writer's Guild standards are USD 0.06 per word, or twenty times of what you're offering), you're offering no guarantees whatsoever. If you at least you agreed to pay whatever little crumbs you're offering up-front, there might be some motivation for people to earn themselves the equivalent of a large pepperoni pizza if they're really out of money for the month (maybe that's what you meant with "not hungry enough"?).

Don't expect many people to come knocking at your door.

B E A N wrote:So you're offering around 0.3 cents per word as a starting payment.
With no guarantees there ever will be more for any individual writer.

Why would I make guarantees to complete strangers of whose skill I have no knowledge? But as the Patreon grows, I'll be able to pay more, obviously. That's what makes this such a good opportunity to get in on the ground floor. As the money comes -- and it's coming -- I can afford to pay better, thus broadening my capacity to attract interested parties. Getting in now would give a writer a great advantage on the competition.

B E A N wrote:Maybe eventually deciding for one of them as your partner, giving them an unspecified "chunk" of your Patreon earnings.

The details of the arrangement are private business. As a semi-professional, you should know that. I'm not looking for grunt labor, I'm looking for a partner.

B E A N wrote:As a semi-pro writer of all sorts of smut, my opinion is that this is a terrible deal. You're severely underpaying people (Writer's Guild standards are USD 0.06 per word, or twenty times of what you're offering), you're offering no guarantees whatsoever.

I don't recognize the Writers' Guild's authority to set the bar. I'm an entrepreneur. We have to work outside the box to make things happen, so we buck against bureaucracy and the damnably fickle idea of "what's fair". And once again, I don't make guarantees to strangers. You're not entitled to something you haven't earned. As a semi-professional, you should know that too.

Please try to see the big picture, here. What I'm offering you is a chance to make a living doing what you love. Search "Fenoxo FenFen patreon" for some idea of what I'm talking about. Guy makes almost 30,000 USD a month doing what he loves. But Fenoxo doesn't have partners. He only employs mercenaries and keeps his fortune for himself. I ask you to look beyond your next paycheck, to look at what's already happening with our project. What I'm offering you is a shot at greatness. But if your not interested, that's okay too. God bless.

0.3 cents per word is ridiculous for a commercial project. You're justifying this payment by saying you have no reason to trust people you don't know. Now tell me, why should people trust you? They are getting offered

-A chance to become the writer after a long trial
-A potential raise IF the project get's remotely succesful.

If you actually believe in your project, maybe you should start funding like you believe.

This is frankly the shittiest partnership I have ever seen. Don't call yourself an entrepreneur just yet.

Please try to see the big picture, here. What I'm offering you is a chance to make a living doing what you love.

One third of a cent for one word isn't a living. It's 200 bucks for writing an entire novel. And the promises you're making? No one's going to make a living off them. The opportunity to be working professionally (which is what you declare to be offering people) means you can live from your work.

I've mentioned the Writer's Guild not because it's a standard I expect young game-makers to be paying but to put into perspective how large the difference is. My first writing job paid me USD0.01 per word, but it was a job where I had huge amounts of creative control and was pretty much allowed to write whatever I wanted (as long as it fit into the setting). Now let's take a look at what you're looking for. The job is

to fill a long list of fetish requests, most of which will occur with total strangers (the enemies of the game, once defeated, become... cooperative), so you have to love writing about lustful sex

So you tell people exactly what they're supposed to write including personality traits of characters involved, sexual fetishes fulfilled - and still consider this "doing the thing you love"?

Also, I'm more than a little concerned about the circumstances under which a writer would ever earn more money than your minimum 1/3 cent per word. If your Patreon works out, you can afford to pay better - but will you actually do that? No matter how well your Patreon is going (unless it's skyrocketing in a way that happens to maybe one in ten thousand people), you can easily claim it's not going well enough yet to increase your offer. I think the conditions you're offering are intransparent to the highest degree.

What really strikes me as unusual is that you keep calling yourself an entrepreneur but apparently are trying to shift all business risks to the people working for you. The risk of failure is usually with the entrepreneur, not his or her employees. (If things go wrong, they are out of a job, but they usually have at least been paid adequately for as long as it lasted.)

And once again, I don't make guarantees to strangers. You're not entitled to something you haven't earned. As a semi-professional, you should know that too.

I usually get paid half up-front. That requires that my employer and I agree on a specified amount of work to be done, and which I'm guaranteed to be allowed to deliver. I don't think I have unusually high standards in comparison to other writers. So if you don't make guarantees to strangers...

Hello Morv. I saw this thread when i was looking through and felt the need to help you out.

No, i don't mean help you out with your work. I mean help you out in finding what you need. If you're relying on this thread to find a professional partner, i'll be honest and say it probably won't work out. Here's why, my friend;

- The rate you're offering is too low for professionals. But you clearly stated it's not about the money, right? You believe that your idea and it's current mode of expression is good enough to work for such a low rate.

- The current expression of your idea is not appealing or strong enough to prove that someone should risk it all and hop on your train. Your art is average and your story is generic. But because it's 18+, it will get good attention, but that's all. It may not be anything great in the long run.

I can understand your belief in your project's potential, because i am also managing a project i hope will be great as well. But amidst the idealism, you must add some pragmatism.

Switch the roles around. Picture yourself as a interested party and re-read your post.

If you need funding outside the patreon, i suggest you find a publisher who would fund you for some revenue. There are a few who might take interest in your idea.

If you do, please edit your post to sound more... pragmatic. As it stands now, i was interested as i read the first half, because i like projects with big scopes, but the second half was you just shooting yourself in the cock.

If you want some advice on available publishers or how to handle this effectively, you can send me a pm. As a fellow with big ideas and alot of confidence, it's the most i can do to help you... before you destroy yourself in the eyes of your peers.

Thanks.

If you can't pay the proper wages (nor willing to give them a written agreement about future profit sharing after certain trial period), you might as well look for free writers as your "apprentice". We have a lot of them here (though I'm not really sure if they're inclined to write about sexual fetishes).

You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

dfbreezy wrote:The current expression of your idea is not appealing or strong enough to prove that someone should risk it all and hop on your train.

That documentation is private. Interested parties will need to PM me for it. I suppose I should've said so.

dfbreezy wrote:I can understand your belief in your project's potential, because i am also managing a project i hope will be great as well. But amidst the idealism, you must add some pragmatism.

This isn't a delusion. It's planned very pragmatically. I don't need a pragmatic ally. I need a dreamer. And since posting, I have another two patrons in the bag. This will succeed. It's a matter of time. If people lack imagination, there's no place for them in this anyway.

dfbreezy wrote:Switch the roles around. Picture yourself as a interested party and re-read your post.

I would've leapt at this chance less than a year ago. And I was already a published author back then.

dfbreezy wrote:If you need funding outside the patreon, i suggest you find a publisher who would fund you for some revenue. There are a few who might take interest in your idea.

If I have to kiss any rings, forget it. This project needs to be free. It would be crippled by a parent company.

indoneko wrote:You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Kind of a rude thing to say about hungry writers, I think. Perhaps it's best to keep such judgments to yourself. Not everything's about money. In fact, all the good stuff isn't.

Part of the reason I'm paying so little is because I need someone who doesn't do it for money. I don't want to work with an intellectual whore but with a genuine lover of sex and its infinite descriptions. I need someone who loves the work. Bottom line. I hope you understand what I mean.

m0RV wrote:

indoneko wrote:You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Kind of a rude thing to say about hungry writers, I think. Perhaps it's best to keep such judgments to yourself. Not everything's about money. In fact, all the good stuff isn't.

Part of the reason I'm paying so little is because I need someone who doesn't do it for money. I don't want to work with an intellectual whore but with a genuine lover of sex and its infinite descriptions. I need someone who loves the work. Bottom line. I hope you understand what I mean.

Wanting enough to live on =/= Doing it for the money
You can find artists who love drawing concepts but it don't mean they're gunna do it for peanuts.

B E A N wrote:So you tell people exactly what they're supposed to write including personality traits of characters involved, sexual fetishes fulfilled - and still consider this "doing the thing you love"?

Not at all. You misunderstand ... everything about what I'm seeking, but you don't really seem to care about it anyway. You seem more interested in engaging me in defining what a writer should be expected to enjoy doing, and how much he should get paid for it. Frankly, neither aspect is any of your business, unless you're really interested in the position, which you're clearly not.

B E A N wrote:Also, I'm more than a little concerned about the circumstances under which a writer would ever earn more money than your minimum 1/3 cent per word. If your Patreon works out, you can afford to pay better - but will you actually do that? No matter how well your Patreon is going (unless it's skyrocketing in a way that happens to maybe one in ten thousand people), you can easily claim it's not going well enough yet to increase your offer. I think the conditions you're offering are intransparent to the highest degree.

Exactly. Of course I'll do what I say I'll do, but you won't be able to pin down the specifics of what I'm offering, no matter how hard you try. I'm not telling the general public what I intend to pay my partner. That would be stupid, unless I was trying to catch a mercenary, which I'm not. What is your motivation in continuing to post here? Who are you trying to impress or dissuade? We get that you doubt what I'm saying. Are you intent on wasting more of your time trying to belittle my efforts? It won't work. May as well be ramming your head against a brick wall.

B E A N wrote:What really strikes me as unusual is that you keep calling yourself an entrepreneur but apparently are trying to shift all business risks to the people working for you. The risk of failure is usually with the entrepreneur, not his or her employees. (If things go wrong, they are out of a job, but they usually have at least been paid adequately for as long as it lasted.)

Nope. No insurance. No safety net. I've already stated my reasoning for this, but I'll restate it for your sake. I don't want an intellectual whore as a partner. I'm not calling semi-professionals whores, or even professionals, for that matter. I'm simply stating that I need someone less motivated by money and more motivated by their heart, since it's going to be a rough start. And despite what you may think of me, I'm someone who honors my associates. If you think otherwise, that's your problem.

B E A N wrote:I usually get paid half up-front. That requires that my employer and I agree on a specified amount of work to be done, and which I'm guaranteed to be allowed to deliver. I don't think I have unusually high standards in comparison to other writers. So if you don't make guarantees to strangers...

There is no cap on how much work needs done, because the workload is constantly growing. That being said, I wish you well in your semi-professional pursuits.

Devilzk wrote:Wanting enough to live on =/= Doing it for the money
You can find artists who love drawing concepts but it don't mean they're gunna do it for peanuts.

Agreed. This a very specialized offer I'm making. I need someone who can afford to invest in this. Lord knows I've done my fair share of investment so far. I need to find someone likeminded, a creative daredevil.

m0RV wrote:

Devilzk wrote:Wanting enough to live on =/= Doing it for the money
You can find artists who love drawing concepts but it don't mean they're gunna do it for peanuts.

Agreed. This a very specialized offer I'm making. I need someone who can afford to invest in this. Lord knows I've done my fair share of investment so far. I need to find someone likeminded, a creative daredevil.

Being a 'daredevil' doesn't mean accepting an unclear and unbeneficial deal. As people have pointed out, if you want people to invest a lot of time and effort into your project, you have to be willing to offer them something that would justify taking the plunge. Offering them a bad deal doesn't promise them anyway and doesn't give them a reason to have confidence in your offer. Likewise,

Part of the reason I'm paying so little is because I need someone who doesn't do it for money. I don't want to work with an intellectual whore but with a genuine lover of sex and its infinite descriptions. I need someone who loves the work. Bottom line. I hope you understand what I mean.

Just tells me you're not valuing someone's time and work, more than anything, if I were looking at applying. Also,

If your hungry for success and also sexually-inclined, this is your chance! I will be taking several apprentices, and as the months roll by and the Patreon flourishes (and it will), I'll be able to afford to pay more and more, and eventually I'll choose my favorite apprentice as a partner, giving him a chunk of the Patreon earnings permanently (or until he retires)!

This is basically setting things up to be Hunger Games: The Writing Edition. Instead of creating a team environment or treating people as partners, telling people that only your "favorite" will even see patreon earnings doesn't give them much incentive to work for the whole of the project, especially when they'd only be earning 0.03/word to begin with.

Based on your group's thread on another forum, your offer there was for a programmer with the promise they'd gain a significant portion of the patreon money. It's really unfair for your group to promise some members shares but then tell others they have to fight for it

https://legendofkrystal.com/forum/viewt ... 04&cache=1

As someone who is also personally funding their game out of their own pocket I know that paying for it sucks... but you won't get good results underpaying people or expecting them to work for free. It's borderline insulting (if not outright so) which I think is shown by the replies you are getting in this thread. Writers are seriously undervalued! As a writer (I'd even be so bold as to call myself professional or at least semi-professional) having someone ask you to work for $5 (writing porn no less!) is just.... no. Especially porn. Someone who writes erotica can make a pretty penny all by themselves, they won't need to work with/for you. Maybe you should try to get funding first, and then talent afterwards when you can pay them properly. Good luck though!