Being a Better Writer: Commissions and Writing to Be Popular

Today's topic is a bit odd, and a bit different. In fact, while it's been sitting untouched on my current topic list (number eight) pretty much from day one, I distinctly recall that it's been on earlier versions of the list, and I've just kept putting it off despite it being a requested topic because ... well ... I don't have much in the way of hands-on experience with it. Really all I can offer is my own reasons for why I don't do either of the things today's topic will discuss, which definitely puts a hard limit on exactly what facets I can talk about.

In other words? I have no personal experience with doing either of the things I'll be talking about today, but rather experience in actively not doing them, which is what I'll be working from. So I'll basically just be discussing "here's why I'm not doing any of these things, but here are the benefits/drawbacks that I've seen/heard about, and why I've not done them."

Sound confusing? Yeah, well, imagine trying to explain it. And short of the title, I haven't even gotten to what today's topic (or rather, closely related topics) are yet, so here goes: Today I'm going to talk about two things—writing commissions and writing for the express purpose of being popular.

Now, the first one I can see some heads nodding at, but the second one I imagine is raising a few eyebrows among the audience out there. After all, isn't being popular a good thing as a writer? We all want our work to be read, perused, and desired, right?

To which I reply, well, yes ... but at the same time, that's wanting our work to be popular, not writing our work to be popular. And yes, one is different from the other.

But for now, let's just leave it at that, as I want to tackle the first half of our topic before I get too deeply into wanting and writing popularity. Put that one on the back burner for the moment, and let's talk about commissions.

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Comments

[ocalhoun]

And commissions? They have no tail. Without jumping through a lot of legal hoops, most of them can’t be resold or put in collections, and some just outright cannot. Because they’re not your product. Not entirely. The characters and situations are usually someone else’s creations. You were paid to give them life, but not to create them. And that means that, barring some legal jujitsu, you’re only going to make that one-time cash gain off of your work.

You make a good point...
I should whip up some legal jujitsu!
A simple 'standard commissions form' that includes language giving me possession of all story elements and the right to modify and resell should do it. ^.^
Come to think of it, if I'd had a form like that when I made What the Heart Craves, I would have been able to do what I wanted and de-ponify it then sell it as a novel.

Sure, it’s good to write outside our sphere from time to time and get some practice, but consider what that could really mean for a moment. Ever had someone tell you their idea for a story and it’s really not that great? Or worse, terrible, but they don’t know it because they’re not immersed in this stuff all day? Now imagine that you have to write that, terrible parts and all.

Yup. That can happen.

Heh, that's what happened with Mizuki.
But I think I managed to wrestle a decent story out of the materials I was given to work with. You just have to be able to talk back and forth with the commissioner, talk to them about story elements that don't seem to be working ... and know how to compensate for them when they insist. The commissioner here really seemed to want a Mary Sue protagonist ... but thankfully, I know a thing or two about de-Suing a Sue. That, plus a little back-and-forth, and I was able to salvage it to the point where I at least somewhat enjoyed writing it.
(And, well, between the commission fee and Patreon support, I earned almost $300 for that story. Worth it! ^.^)

Who else is going to want to read what you wrote? Because odds are, the audience is small—after all, it was originally a target audience of one.

Heh, that was a big downside of Mizuki.
But still, there was some audience for it. I made a few people very happy, so there's that.
(And some of my clop commissions have gone on to be extremely popular ... you never know.)