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Dire Straights - Stories for money?
9 years ago
After moving, I am having a hard time finding a job here in Colorado Springs so I was talking with John Thornbush, he mentioned that he could offer to do story commissions - though he doesn't really know if anyone would be interested. So I guess I will float the idea out there - who would be interested in such an arrangement?
-- EDIT 4/30/2016 @ 1646 hours MST --
Talked with John about this at length, he mentioned a standard rate of 0.03 to 0.06 cents a word could be used as a very rough guess - though he does mention that longer works would illicit a lower cost per word naturally. Of course, he also stipulated that he would be more interested in seeing what people wanted to pay and how long they were looking for since it would be the first time he would 'work for hire' so to speak versus using those figures as a hard-and-fast rule.
For example, a story snippet like 'Welcoming Waltman' (found here - http://johnthornbush.livejournal.com/36165.html) from the book is 4,241 words - using the professional 'writer for hire' rates above would be about $128.00 but he'd likely be flexible depending on the subject, the specific requirements, timeframe, and the like. Since that's part of his own book with his own characters under no time committment - the figures would be radically different.
Another example would be the Tess-taur story he did for me - I think we agreed upon what amounted to about $50 or so of rendered services (there is a bit that still has to be done on it, but its on the back burner for his novel, which I am cool with) with a word count of 2,519 words. If I had a burning desire for the entire thing like yesterday, I'd imagine I'd be on the hook for a lot more.
So, I guess its the long way of saying, "Shoot me the idea of length, I'll negotiate a price fitting your budget?"
-- EDIT 4/30/2016 @ 1646 hours MST --
Talked with John about this at length, he mentioned a standard rate of 0.03 to 0.06 cents a word could be used as a very rough guess - though he does mention that longer works would illicit a lower cost per word naturally. Of course, he also stipulated that he would be more interested in seeing what people wanted to pay and how long they were looking for since it would be the first time he would 'work for hire' so to speak versus using those figures as a hard-and-fast rule.
For example, a story snippet like 'Welcoming Waltman' (found here - http://johnthornbush.livejournal.com/36165.html) from the book is 4,241 words - using the professional 'writer for hire' rates above would be about $128.00 but he'd likely be flexible depending on the subject, the specific requirements, timeframe, and the like. Since that's part of his own book with his own characters under no time committment - the figures would be radically different.
Another example would be the Tess-taur story he did for me - I think we agreed upon what amounted to about $50 or so of rendered services (there is a bit that still has to be done on it, but its on the back burner for his novel, which I am cool with) with a word count of 2,519 words. If I had a burning desire for the entire thing like yesterday, I'd imagine I'd be on the hook for a lot more.
So, I guess its the long way of saying, "Shoot me the idea of length, I'll negotiate a price fitting your budget?"
I have, however, recently gotten a note from someone interested in commissioning the same kinds of things you have done and pointed that person in your direction. In fact...I'm going to go signal boost this because more stuff from you two is always welcome.
I know you are an author in your own right, so it would make sense that you would not likely want to pay another writer to do what you already could do on your own. No worries, I'm pretty sure John would not find that offensive. :)