I'm still a little confused about the line between cyberfunded creativity and general e-commerce, so I'm not sure I can answer these 'correctly.'
I bought some original art direct from artists this month, and brokered a handful of portrait adoptions as well as a few of my own (these were largely web adoptions, which have no tangible trade of goods, so those at least probably qualify!).
I've done more creative writing in February than I have the past five months put together, I think, but I'm (so far) entirely too shy to ask donations for them yet, so they're just available on-line.
A new issue of EMG-Zine just went up - http://www.emg-zine.com - and I am investigating how I might add a donation engine to the backend of the site that will allow the writers and artists to get their specific donations, but be easy for a reader to combine into a single payment. Right now I pay for non-fiction in EMG credit (giftstore purchases or print services are the most popular redemptions), but I have a backend at the main EMG site that will track both a 'real money' balance and a 'spending credit', so I'm trying to figure out how to merge it all so that it's not an administrative nightmare. Mostly, I want to make sure it's a fair distribution, but that I don't get hosed with paypal fees over small donations. (So a flat percentage is right out.) I'm considering making the donations $1 increments, with the author/artist getting .60 for the first dollar and .90 for each additional dollar. After paypal fees, I'd be getting about 7% to cover hosting and administrative fees - a little more if they donated to more than one contributor. And, would I do this in addition to paying them the credit? It's not exactly a break-even scenario unless donations are really outstanding, but EMG-zine was meant as a service, not a money-maker, so it's mostly a matter of 'is it worth the hassle of setting up?'
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Date: 2008-03-01 10:52 pm (UTC)I bought some original art direct from artists this month, and brokered a handful of portrait adoptions as well as a few of my own (these were largely web adoptions, which have no tangible trade of goods, so those at least probably qualify!).
I've done more creative writing in February than I have the past five months put together, I think, but I'm (so far) entirely too shy to ask donations for them yet, so they're just available on-line.
A new issue of EMG-Zine just went up - http://www.emg-zine.com - and I am investigating how I might add a donation engine to the backend of the site that will allow the writers and artists to get their specific donations, but be easy for a reader to combine into a single payment. Right now I pay for non-fiction in EMG credit (giftstore purchases or print services are the most popular redemptions), but I have a backend at the main EMG site that will track both a 'real money' balance and a 'spending credit', so I'm trying to figure out how to merge it all so that it's not an administrative nightmare. Mostly, I want to make sure it's a fair distribution, but that I don't get hosed with paypal fees over small donations. (So a flat percentage is right out.) I'm considering making the donations $1 increments, with the author/artist getting .60 for the first dollar and .90 for each additional dollar. After paypal fees, I'd be getting about 7% to cover hosting and administrative fees - a little more if they donated to more than one contributor. And, would I do this in addition to paying them the credit? It's not exactly a break-even scenario unless donations are really outstanding, but EMG-zine was meant as a service, not a money-maker, so it's mostly a matter of 'is it worth the hassle of setting up?'
That's my ramble.