Writing Commissions

[TIMOTIN]

I don't know if this fits in well with the sub-forum, but I want to know about this.

Have you tried doing writing commissions for people giving you money for what they want to read? Kinda similar to art commission but for writing (yes, kind of redundant to explain that). I say this because I thought of doing that to get some money out of it.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

The world is full of books and stories of every description. Why would a client pay a writer, say, forty cents a word for something he or she can buy online neatly packaged in a cover for less than $20?

That being said...

An acquaintance began a business writing made-to-order poetry, short stories, and letters for people who wanted to give loved ones something special but couldn't write themselves. I don't know how she handled copyright issues, but clients were thin on the ground for such a service.

Anais Nin wrote erotica for a private client. I read somewhere that he paid a dollar a page, which was pretty good money back then. The stories were later published as Delta of Venus.

 

[Naomasa298]

I can see it happening for copy-writing. But increasingly, that's less for human reading than machine-legibility.

 

[Homer Potvin]

I think that would very tough to break into without a dedicated following. And if you can create a dedicated following from what you've already written, you probably wouldn't need to write on commission to begin with, I would think. No idea, though.

 

[Stuart Dren]

I think it would be niche, usually erotic stuff.

 

[JT Woody]

I sorta kinda did this (not for money) when I was on DeviantART years (and years) ago. I wrote this fan fiction and posted like a chapter every other week or so. some of the comments were requesting I write in this and add in that. When i finished the story, I got requests for other stories.

Honestly, a lot of people were doing this back in the early 2000s and 2010s. I followed this one creator that wrote fiction set in the Naruto world with OG characters. every so often, she'd have a thing where she'd request OG characters from her followers, and if she liked them, she'd write them into her series.

I haven't been on DeviantART in years (I went to see if I could get my old account deactivated since I hadn't been using it, and the site is over run with AI stuff).

In terms of this concept you described... "everything old becomes new again."
Why don't you try it out? couldn't hurt

 

[X Equestris]

Writing comms tend (or at least tended) to be concentrated in fandom communities, especially erotica or fetish content about specific characters and pairings. So the easiest way to break in is writing fanfiction tied to popular series and posting it on vibrant fandom sites.

When I was younger and more involved in the fanfic scene, those would be Wattpad, DeviantArt, FanFiction(.)net, Tumblr, etc. But times have changed. Lit never got a ton of traction on DeviantArt, which is dying anyway from all the AI, Tumblr lost tons of users after their porn ban, FF(.)net is pretty dead compared to what it once was, and Wattpad also seems to be in decline. Archive of Our Own dominates the fanfic scene these days, and they’re pretty firm about avoiding any hint of monetization, so I don’t think they’re the platform to build on if you’re after comms.

I’ve only ever done a few commissions, and those really straddled the line between commission and solicited submission. One was on DeviantArt and the other two were on Upwork. The former was for an anthology that ended up never getting off the ground, the latter for a gaming company to flesh out their world.

 

[TIMOTIN]

Writing comms tend (or at least tended) to be concentrated in fandom communities, especially erotica or fetish content about specific characters and pairings. So the easiest way to break in is writing fanfiction tied to popular series and posting it on vibrant fandom sites.

When I was younger and more involved in the fanfic scene, those would be Wattpad, DeviantArt, FanFiction(.)net, Tumblr, etc. But times have changed. Lit never got a ton of traction on DeviantArt, which is dying anyway from all the AI, Tumblr lost tons of users after their porn ban, FF(.)net is pretty dead compared to what it once was, and Wattpad also seems to be in decline. Archive of Our Own dominates the fanfic scene these days, and they’re pretty firm about avoiding any hint of monetization, so I don’t think they’re the platform to build on if you’re after comms.

Well, my stories will not be an erotica/fetish content (it'll be taboo romance instead) and will be an original content (most of the time), so I basically lost 90% of my potential audience hehehe...

I mostly use AO3, which I know isn't a good way to advertise your commissions with their rule against monetization. I've a website on DreamWidth, maybe I could link it through my AO3 profile, and I could make a BlueSky account to advertise my writings and try to know what kind of audience I want. Is it okay to talk more about this on the DMs by the way?

 

[Luxuria]

Well, my stories will not be an erotica/fetish content (it'll be taboo romance instead) and will be an original content (most of the time), so I basically lost 90% of my potential audience hehehe...

I mostly use AO3, which I know isn't a good way to advertise your commissions with their rule against monetization. I've a website on DreamWidth, maybe I could link it through my AO3 profile, and I could make a BlueSky account to advertise my writings and try to know what kind of audience I want. Is it okay to talk more about this on the DMs by the way?

To be honest, from what I have seen, no one really reads just romance. In fanfic, they want the smut. I have posted epic works and am not popular, because I don't write smut at all. Taboo subjects, yes, but not smut. Also, what you might consider taboo might not be taboo enough in fandom. Aka, it's been done, is standard for the fandom and there's more to explore. It's honestly a race to the bottom.

 

[Stuart Dren]

To be honest, from what I have seen, no one really reads just romance. In fanfic, they want the smut. I have posted epic works and am not popular, because I don't write smut at all. Taboo subjects, yes, but not smut. Also, what you might consider taboo might not be taboo enough in fandom. Aka, it's been done, is standard for the fandom and there's more to explore. It's honestly a race to the bottom.

Haha. I believe it. Humans are just the worst, aren't we?

 

[TIMOTIN]

To be honest, from what I have seen, no one really reads just romance. In fanfic, they want the smut. I have posted epic works and am not popular, because I don't write smut at all. Taboo subjects, yes, but not smut. Also, what you might consider taboo might not be taboo enough in fandom. Aka, it's been done, is standard for the fandom and there's more to explore. It's honestly a race to the bottom.

Now what...? I'm not a menace!! Okay I kinda am but c'mon!

 

[Luxuria]

Haha. I believe it. Humans are just the worst, aren't we?

Yeah. Especially when you write for some fandoms and you must put: "No pairings and no incest' in the story description. Because you want people to know that your story does not have ANY of those things in it, inside a fandom where the main characters are siblings and it's common.

 

[Luxuria]

View attachment 1307

Now what...? I'm not a menace!! Okay I kinda am but c'mon!

Yeah, from what I seen in the fandoms I write for and am ignored, more or less, it's a race to the bottom. For example, even if you write Luke/Leia fanfic, I swear people might think it's boring and not read it. I could be wrong, but I am sure more people would want Luke/Darth Vader or something weirder. I could be wrong, and maybe my perspective is off, but I swear fandoms are weird. It's a race to see who comes up with the most forbidden pairing and while there is a roaming morality fandom police force, no one gives a damn. Also, the fandom morality police are weird from what I have heard. Anyway, I realize there is hope, though. Because ONE genre that does well in the romance field aside from Smut or porn without plot is: Slow Burn.

If you can string your readers a long for 100K with payoff, then you're golden. Some people like really long drawn out romances and maybe that's something you might look toward.

 

[X Equestris]

Well, my stories will not be an erotica/fetish content (it'll be taboo romance instead)

I’m gonna go ahead and warn you the market for taboo romance definitely expects explicit sex. So while it wouldn’t be erotica, since sex isn’t driving the plot, they’re still going to want what you would probably consider “smut”.

Is it okay to talk more about this on the DMs by the way?

Sure, I have no objections there.