Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Paid to fail

2 Comments

Something funny just happened, like, one hour ago.
As you can imagine, I am trying to spread the news of my public writing session this Saturday (less than 72 hours to go!): it’s a publicity stunt, it’s an experiment I want to try, it’s going to be fun, I like the idea of entertaining my fans and acquiring new ones, I want as wide an audience as possible.
. One problem.
. Two characters.
. Three thousand words.
I set my time for the thing to five hours – and one commentator on my Italian blog pointed out that five hours is a lot of time to write a three thousand words story from scratch, in English.
There is always someone who’s faster on the draw than us, out there, always someone whose kung fu is stronger than ours.

20140724+Wild+West+Fight

So I said I’d be happy to reduce my time, down to a minimum of two hours, as long as someone is willing to pay me 100 Euro for each hour I cut.
Shell out 300 quid, and I’ll do it in two hours.
And I’ll do it.
But apparently that’s too much.

And because it is my absolute conviction that, like Steely Dan said, you gotta walk it the way you talk it, I’ve set up a donation button on my Italian blog, and I will cut ten minutes for every 25 Euro the punters will pay me, or 30 minutes for a single special discounted 50 Euro donation. Down to a minimum of two hours.
This is, after all, the age of crowdfunding.

And I do love the idea of being paid by those that wish to see me fail.

I’ll keep you guys posted about the developments.
Saturday night is going to be pretty interesting, I guess.

Author: Davide Mana

Paleontologist. By day, researcher, teacher and ecological statistics guru. By night, pulp fantasy author-publisher, translator and blogger. In the spare time, Orientalist Anonymous, guerilla cook.

2 thoughts on “Paid to fail

  1. The fine difference between talk about something and doing something… let’s see how much money will come in.

    Like

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