(Relevant music to listen to while reading)

So it's getting time that I really ought to start taking commissions again soon, but before I can do that I need to do more work on my commission policies. The biggest thing I need to do is find a way to more effectively limit the amount of work I have to do so that I'm not getting overwhelmed by massive quantities of work. As mentioned in a previous journal, I was thinking that something I will do is, instead of opening for "slots" I will open up a set amount of total words that I will be willing to do and customers purchase however much they need. For example, let's say I open up for 10,000 words, and three people are interested. The first person who confirms their idea and the plot details thereof with me wants 3000 words, so that leaves 7000 words left for the others. In the event that all of the allotted words are used up and a story still isn't finished, I might be able to go just a little further if it's nearly done, but otherwise this will necessitate purchasing an additional allotment of words, whether there's still any available or waiting until the next time I'm open. I apologize if this sounds unfair, however after recent commissions it's become apparent that longer stories are in greater demand than I thought when I first started taking commissions so I'm going to have to make sure that I'm both taking on a workload I can handle and getting properly compensated for the time I spend. Generally speaking, it's more likely that shorter stories are going to get on the list first because it will take less time for them to get confirmed.

Now, how exactly does one go about knowing how many words they will need to purchase for their commission? This is admittedly a process that still isn't entirely effective, but I would like to be able to say that I have gotten substantially better at doing this than I have in previous years. Generally, there are two things to take into consideration for how long a story will be, and those are how many characters are in it and how many primary actions there are. When I say a "primary action" I refer to the steps of the plot that lead into one another. For example, let's take a fairly standard weight gain plot: character eats some food spiked with fatblorp plot convenience and proceeds to grow into a blob. The eating itself serves as one action point and then the growth itself is another (also allow a little extra for concluding wrap-up); generally, any time you have to say "and then this happens" or something similar, that indicates a new action point. On average, a single plot point like this takes between 1000 and 2000 words, although this is only for a story that features one or two fully developed characters (side characters can be easier to squeeze in), adding additional primary characters to an interaction can stretch it out by a fair amount. For the record, I imagine a story like the weight gain plot I just mentioned would be somewhere around 3000 words long.

UPDATE: I am considering putting a hard limit on the maximum number of words someone can commission per round in order to make it so the whole queue can't be taken up by one person, and also since it's probably better anyway to do super long stories in chunks spread out over time instead of all at once.

Prices for commissions themselves will still remain the same, I will be charging a penny per word - so the above example story would cost around $30. However, if it weren't already clear, I am going to be getting stricter about this; as mentioned above, I try my best to give accurate estimates of how long a story might be, but I can rarely be perfectly accurate. In the event that a story takes less words to complete than I initially thought then the price will be lowered appropriately, and by the same token if it goes over the estimate then I will unfortunately have no choice but to charge extra as necessary.

Things that I can definitely do:
Fat/weight gain
Inflation
Transformation
Macro
Hyper (male or female)
Pokemon
My Little Pony
Monster Hunter

Things that I definitely won't do:
Underage stuff
Scat/watersports
Anal-related things
Anything that I deem to be too rape-ish

Anything not mentioned above can most likely be negotiated. In addition, when it comes to MLP, or possibly any other pre-established characters, I reserve the right to decline to anything that I feel goes too far against a character's canon portrayal. I'm slightly more open to doing sexual things now, but it may be best to keep in mind that I'm not that great at erotic scenes, and if there's outright sex I prefer to keep things minimalistic, I may have to charge extra for things like that.



Now lastly, regarding the current situation in which I am posting this, it is important to note that this does NOT mean I am actually taking writing commissions right at this moment, I will be posting a new journal sometime later to announce when that is happening. I am thinking that I might make an announcement a day or two ahead of time to let people know when I am planning on opening so that they can have a better chance to prepare for when spots open. Again, the more prepared you are to get a spot the more likely it is that you'll be at the front of the line, and it will also help to that end if your story is on the shorter side, longer stories are more likely to take a while to plan out.

Although if you want a coloring commission, I'm still plenty open for those. :D