What are the prices for text content?

[coy]

Originally posted by Red@Feb 24 2005, 10:07 AM

You wont get into trouble Raven, at least not with me.

In principle I agree with you 100%. But unfortunately we have to go with what the market will bare. Adult writing has always paid shit. 10 years ago when I was writing for men's print mags, the standard payment was $25 for a 4 page letter to the forum and $100 for a 10 page story. I don't know what they're paying now, but I'll bet it's not much more.

The best compensation I've received was when Lensman hired me to be the Amateur Pages copywriter. I was paid an extremely good salary, but I also did a lot more than just write copy. When I left him and started Eroticopy I was commanding a good price for my work. That lasted for 3 months. After that, a bunch of other copywriting services opened up, undercut my prices and I had to lower them to compete. When it comes to adult webmasters, text is at the bottom of their "necessary expenditures" list. You, of all people know how many hacks are selling stories for $5 and webmasters are buying them.

You're right that it is shamefull when you look at what mainstream writing pays, but adult webmasters don't want to hear it. So what do we do? If you're ready to start the revolution, I'll be right behind you, picket sign in hand.

I agree totally. We writers... TRUE writers have had to basically bend over the barrel when it came to selling our content. We do have to charge what the market will bare, unfortunately in our case; text is one of the last things webmasters want to budget for despite the necessity.

I’ve been laughed at when I’ve told webmasters I charge $50 a story and have turned away a lot of disillusioned ones who were under the impression we can just whip full custom story out in a few minutes. It takes no talent, no thought, all we’re doing is typing. WRONG!

I’ll join you both... I am so utterly tired of scum pushing stolen or horribly written content, not only on principle but also because we have to compete with that. Now I’ve never had an unsatisfied customer. I’ve have a great many come to me, very skeptical of the price and the quality, but once they’ve seen the difference between real erotic stories and the crap they’ve been fed, they come running back.

*heads off to find the picketing smiley*