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career vs passion vs what / / rant, another dilemma

A few months ago, I worked briefly for this website. Essentially, they're a website where you can post your stories and potentially earn money from. However, all the books there are shit, the user interface sucks, and there are very little readers so posting your stories there doesn't really get you any reads and thus no money.

Anyways, they paid me $40 to help me reach out to potential customers and do things like online press releases and basically publicizing the website. I was completely done with the whole thing because, really, it's so shit and ridiculous. I told them that they should not limit one book to 6,000 words (what the hell kind of length is that, like?). Instead, they say, they want a book that can be read quickly during a bathroom break or lunch break, and that no one reads long stories anymore, like the hell? Have you ever set food in a bookstore?

That aside, they recently contacted me again. See, I'm not that great on Wattpad, but I do have a small following of 1.8k people, and my best book is at around 890k reads. So, it's not bad. So, they suddenly asked if I had any unpublished or uncompleted works. So I told them I have one currently on Wattpad (aka Midnight) that is uncompleted, and also I have a work that is not yet published and is still under works. 

And they said, and I quote: "I want the exclusivity to your unpublished story. You will only release the first two chapters on Wattpad and put an introduction like (another story that links to a different website for writing) did advising that the remaining chapters will be released on our wesbite"

Of course, I asked, "what will I get from that? I'll only receive less exposure".

Then came the reply. 

"I will be paying you $100 for it."

Of course, I'm baffled. So, I told them to allow me to think about it. Their response was, "Sure. Take your time and get back to me. If there's any concern, we can resolveit together. I have one Wattpad writer with over 33k followers onboard already. Just want you too."

Now. That "unpublished story" is actually my prized possession, aka, Between Forever and Never. I have been working extra hard, and one day hope to get it published because I think I can do really well with it. So, of course, it's my baby, I want it for myself, I don't want it's future to be a dreary website just for a hundred bucks because I love money. No. 

But I do want the money, God, I do. 

What do I do? I guess I should agree, and give something that isn't BFAN, but that means I have to work on another story, and oh my God, what now? I can't just start from scrap... can I?

Jeez. I'm just creating more and more jobs for myself. 

I have a few story ideas, but I have not really expanded on it, but there are a few that I think might just work. Sigh. Oh well. Should I agree?


Comments

  1. Nukey Noor27 June 2017 at 04:48

    *set foot

    No. You shouldn't. For something so dear to you and something you've worked so hard on, $100 isn't worth it (regardless of any currency exchange). I know that Before Forever and Never means a lot to you, and really, it most probably costs $100 million (don't know if that's a real number) if it's value (to you) were to be converted into money. For something so crappy, you shouldn't let them use your talents and hard work.

    Don't agree. For your sake, and your book, please don't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Claudia Khaw27 June 2017 at 04:51

      Aw, thanks Nuha :) I've decided to agree to it, but not for Between Forever and Never. In the end, they only want about 12,000 words or so, so I will just write something short and kinda crappy for them.

      Thank you thought <3 <3 <3 <3 :)

      Delete

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