The Fivers-on-Commission Thread

[Zeke]

Okay, I've been thinking about this for far too long without taking any action. Last year I started working on ways to get some income from 5M.net, without just asking for donations (a point I never intend to get to). I considered ideas like merchandise and selling original drafts of fivers. Those may still have a role to play, but I've since had a much better idea, and I'd like your input on it.

Suppose that for a certain price, you could tell me what fiver to write next. It could be anything within my domain that you wanted to see -- a particular episode of ENT, VS9, Andromeda, Farscape, whatever. Suppose further that there would be a reasonable but firm deadline (five days, say), and if I missed it you'd get your money back and I'd still have to do the fiver.

What would you consider a fair price? Right now I'm leaning towards $20 Canadian ($17.33 US). Anything less than $15 wouldn't be fair on my end -- fivers aren't something you can just grind out -- but I'm not sure how it looks from the other side.

(Note 1: To give a little more detail, "my domain" is basically anything I'm already familiar with or have ready access to. That includes but is not limited to all the Trek series, VS9, Andromeda, Farscape, B5, Buffy, Angel, The OC, Smallville, and any Mega Man game. If it's something that would be a bit more trouble, such as a movie, it would cost extra but I'd still take the job.)

(Note 2: The signed fiver printouts are finally going out today. Sorry for the wait.)

[whoiam]

That's... about £12 a fiver? Seems reasonable enough - well, as a fee for doing the work, but it seems a little high for one person to pay for one fiver (being about twice the price of most paperback novels).

I wonder how many of you would be willing to split the cost of a half-season of ENT fivers with me?

I dunno... maybe we should, say, pay you £2 each and nominate a fiver, and have a raffle as to which one actually gets done? Make it a monthly event, perhaps? Hold the raffle on the first weekend of every month and the winner's fiver is written by the following weekend?

[e of pi]

I like the raffle idea. How much would the remaining episodes of Andromeda between the first few and the fish one be?

[KillerGodMan]

I like the idea, but I have no means of doing it.

I'd steal my Dad's amex, but his is Government Issue, and, for some reason, stealing it is concidered treason!

[Nate the Great]

Fiver merchandise...that's a conundrum.

If we had completed series' of fivers, I'd suggest making CD-R's of every fiver for a series in perfect HTML so you can link to any of them or go from fiver to fiver in order.

How about paying for the right to five previously done episodes? Over at 5MSG we had many versions of the most popular episodes. Each had their own quirks and sense of humor. Granted, if you opened it up so that anyone could five anything for free, we'd quickly descend into chaos, but if we had to pay five bucks or something to submit our spin on "The Trouble with Tribbles" or something, and have all versions equally accessable, that'd be fun.

Or how about watches with the fiver logo on them? Granted we couldn't use graphics of any Star Trek ships, but just the red sliver would be cool.

Or how about selling CDs of audiofivers? I mean, creating a cast for each series between us, and reading the fivers out loud? Add some basic sound effects and we're good to go!

[ijdgaf]

Originally Posted by whoiam

I wonder how many of you would be willing to split the cost of a half-season of ENT fivers with me?

Man, I can see it now....

Y'all pooling all your hard-earned money together to make Zeke work for eternity?

Jeez... mercy!

[e of pi]

Uncle!

[whoiam]

Speaking of ways of getting money, would anyone other then me be interested in a @fiveminute.net email address?

(Just so you know, I have a kind of hobby of collecting email addresses from obscure domains - I have ones on acstudent.co.uk, dll.me.uk, slaversinc.co.uk (don't ask), thirdcursus.com (RP group), rhyadra.co.uk, daughterofthenight.co.uk (again don't ask. please GOD, don't ask) and arcadiaschool.co.uk (RP group) that I can think of offhand. I wouldn't mind adding a fiveminute.net one to my collection...)

[Kristina]

The concept of domain e-mail addresses is a great idea. I'd personally like to see some merchandise, though, even if it's a conundrum.

[danieldoof]

yeah for merchandise....
I vote for personal t-shirts with nickname and clock and the word dsokdpaches......but I voted for it before :wink:

[Chancellor Valium]

Hows about eeeeevil red armbands with "Mwahahahahahaha!" written on them?

5M.net keyrings, biros (the nice sort, not icky 5p bic things) etc. Even chairs with "DOOOOOOOM!" written on them?

[e of pi]

I wouldn't mind a watch.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by e of pi

I wouldn't mind a watch.

Watches would also be good.

As would signed photos of Zeke, Ekez, Zek and/or Zuke.

[e of pi]

Agreed.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by e of pi

Agreed.

Good.

How about key-chains? Or have I mentioned those already?

[Nate the Great]

Glad you all like my idea. Just a black dial with the red five-minute wedge and the web address below it. Maybe toss in a "Got Five?"

[e of pi]

Dang, that's a cool idea.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by e of pi

Dang, that's a cool idea.

Agreed.

[Nate the Great]

Does the "cool idea" include the "got five?"

[e of pi]

Yeah. That really sealed it.