texvox

I have tried TESO! It was a lot of fun for a bit, but I've given up online gaming due to the time sink required for me to play them the way that I like to. 4 kids and a business eat up a lot of the day so single-player that I can put down for a while if needed is it for me these days. Still, maybe one day I'll check it out again. I can't get away from TES 🤣

There are a few different tiles but if I had to pick a primary release it would have to be The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for me. I was 13 when it debuted and I remember putting our terrible family computer to the test running it on the lowest settings for a laggy good time. It's the game that really took me from casual gaming to falling in love with gaming. I played it to death and spent twice as much time modding it. There was a time when I could give you the exact coordinates of almost every item in the original game release. I made some great friends along the way, and even got my first taste of voice acting a few years into it for a mod. My wife jokes that when she met me I owned 8 copies of the game because I kept scratching, breaking or losing the CDs over the years. I still fire it up every once in a while for old time's sake and have enjoyed introducing my 4 kids to it (who comment on just how terrible the vanilla game looks; spoiled with current gen graphics much? 🤣).

Mamma never gave me her recipe. In the south there's all kinds of secrets in cooking that nobody wants to share, sometimes even if you're as close as blood 🤣 But if you want to find out the basics of how to cook it up just Google something like "Southern style pig's feet" or "Southern BBQ pig's feet recipe" and you should get something close. If you want to make a full meal out of it like I grew up with you also need to look up how to make: Southern style honey cornbread Southern style collard greens (or mustard greens) Southern style black-eyed-peas Southern style potato salad It's important that you look up a southern recipe. If you can get even more specific there's special ways people in the Carolinas prepare all of this. Put all of the above together and you've got a Sunday meal 🤤

I've never actually tried it. I like my grits swimming in butter with a ton of pepper and I don't know if I'm ready to experiment and ruin a good thing. I'm also a stone-ground grits person. I guess I'm a grit snob...I blame my childhood in the Carolinas 😆

It's a tie between country fried steak or shrimp and grits. No matter where I am, if I see either on the menu I can't help myself. When I see both it's a good time and a big meal. I have a lot of history with both, and have found myself eating one or the other at a lot of important moments in my life so I have all kinds of associations with them. I'm pretty sure I bleed either gravy or grits at this point. My runner's up meal? Pig's feet. I grew up in the south and was raised next to the same great southern family for 20 years. I was best friends with my neighbor and always at his house. His mother was like a second mother to me, and "Mamma Lou" introduced me to them. I love Lou, and I loved those pig's feet. Another one that's delicious and comes with a lot of great memories. Haven't had them in a while, but even thinking about it makes me want a plate.

I'm a notepad guy. There's something about writing things down over typing them up that helps me to connect with ideas more effectively. Maybe it's the tactile sensation of holding the pencil and touching it to paper; who knows? Scattered all over my desk are normally handwritten project breakdowns and quotes, as well as to-do lists and random thoughts that pop up while I'm working. Actual footage of my workspace at this very moment:

I've been an Apple user for some time now simply because I run my business on MacOS and it made sense to grab an Apple phone to interface more effectively with the ecosystem I spend most of my days using already. I've found Apple phones to work well overall. I do sometimes miss the customizability of the Android platform, but overall I try to spend less and less time on my phone anyway so it's not a major issue for me. To me, it's just a phone.

Not a tiny-home owner at the moment, but my wife and I have looked into this several times. It's a fun option for those of us who live more of our lives outside than in. Are you just looking for permanent tiny-home structures, or have you consider THOW (tiny homes on wheels)? The permanent structure is, well, more permanent, but with that comes certain tax obligations and other requirements, vs having a tiny home on wheels which does not necessarily count as a dwelling in the traditional sense when it comes to taxation and land valuation. The only downside is that THOWs aren't necessarily allowed everywhere in the US for one reason or another, even as ADUs (accessory dwelling units). If you're only interested in more permanent tiny homes, like a small cabin, you'll want to take into consideration the costs of setting a foundation and running more permanent electricity and water utilities (whether city water or a well), which can add up pretty darn quick depending on your land and your build location on that land.

@imagination7413 hit the nail on the head here. If you're a voice artist who is used to working in a studio and have no way to record from home this will be your path. Pricing it in is the only option you really have to make sure you can obtain the studio you need without destroying your own bottom line here on Fiverr. The vast majority of voice buyers on this platform are not going to be folks who are used to hiring someone to be only the voice and then having to also hire a studio for you to work from. As a side note - as a voice actor myself with a strong direct business outside of Fiverr I would highly recommend that you invest in at least some basic recording gear of your own. This was enormously important during the COVID days, but remains so even now to really stay competitive. Even if you live in LA, NY or Chicago and you're one of the golden voices that dominates the national broadcast scene and books national commercial after national commercial, having recording gear of your own is only going to grow your business. At this point you can build an excellent home studio for under $500 that can compete on the national stage, at least for auditions. Definitely worth the investment even if you continue to primarily book clients who pay for studio time.

As mentioned by the prior poster, Fiverr keeps 20% and pays you out 80%. But as an additional heads up this also applies to tips you receive on orders you complete here on the platform. This percentage also does not change with order size, so expect 20% to be deducted from every project whether $5 or $5000.

You can't really force the first order your way, but there are several things you can do to make yourself more appealing to the algorithm. 1. Clearly define the service you're offering. Make sure that a potential buyer can tell exactly what it is that you're going to be doing for them based on your gig title and your gig description. I've seen a lot of vague gigs out there that are not really specific enough for anyone to know exactly what to expect when buying from you. The more specific, the more likely your gig is to appeal to a buyer. 2. Dial in your keywords. Do some research in the Fiverr search function to see what other sellers in your niche are including in their titles and gig descriptions. Fiverr is algorithm-led, so you need to know what keywords buyers are most often searching for and what the algorithm is most frequently displaying. 3. Make sure your work examples are excellent quality. If someone is going to spend money on your service - whether it's $5 or $5000 - they want to know they're getting something good for their money. Certain buyers will have bloated expectations of what they can get for their money, but regardless you really want to show that you can offer high-quality work to attract buyers. Otherwise they may see your gig and even click on it, but leave quickly. High quality samples gives them a reason to stay a little longer, which can translate into a sale. 4. Considering adding a call-to-action phrase in your gig description, like "Simply place your order and let's get started!" or something similar. Some sort of phrase to urge a potential buyer to action. There is a lot more to be done to really dial in your gig, but these are starting points for every seller.

If this is a first-time buyer, or even a repeat buyer that you don't have a lot of history with, I would always default to charging for additional services. You're providing a valuable service, and time is the one thing you cannot create more of in life. Charge for yours. If it's a buyer you have a great history with, I'm open to providing a few "freebies" here and there. Several years ago a friend of mine who is also a small business owner taught me the value of cutting great clients a break once in a while. Sometimes giving away a little bit of your time now can generate a lot of good will with a client and a ton of work later. But this is something I reserve only for the clients I have the best relationships with and can trust.

I'm on board with extending deadlines and setting that message. Unfortunately where I went in Ukraine was a few km off the front lines and all blown to kingdom come so no wifi and mostly no cell service was gonna destroy my response rate so vacay mode was all I had. But we win some and lose some, and like you mentioned Fiverr doesn't owe us a spot on the train. It's sad to see how many folks have been railroaded by the vacation feature though. I'm glad it's worked out for you over the years! I know a lot of sellers personally whose Fiverr world has been flipped upside down by using it even briefly. But all the more reason for us to have a health direct business and, like you mentioned, view Fiverr as a side dish. Kesha said she'd forward it up the chain so who knows; a guy can dream 🤣

It all comes back to family for me. Being able to provide for them, but more importantly being able to be present with them. I could work my tail off and constantly be growing my income with no ceiling in sight and it would feel nice to have a significant surplus of resources, but if I'm not there to actually enjoy the family I'm providing for and live this one life together I would see that as a failure. Instead I set myself a specific income goal a few years ago and a target of working 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm grateful to have met and exceeded the income goal, and I'm currently down to an average of about 5 hours a day 5 days a week. Every step I make toward that goal feels like a big win to me.

EDIT: the below was put together in a rush so I know I got a little soap-boxy and off topic. I added a notation about where my main point ends if you don't care to read further. I agree that we aren’t employed by Fiverr in the traditional sense, but the algorithm does put employment-like expectations on our participation on the platform in order to remain in favor, and using the unavailable feature has a serious impact on a lot of sellers even when used infrequently, so repeated use is a no-go. Unlike freelancing outside of Fiverr where you have complete control over the growth of your business and your visibility to potential clients, here on Fiverr these things lie in the hands of an algorithm nobody completely understands and upon which we can make relatively little impact. Almost like an employer making decisions about your career for you. With that in mind I think it’s worth Fiverr exploring small updates like what was suggested here to allow us to set recurring, automated unavailability (“days off,” but we don’t have to call it that) rather than sticking to the manual solution right now. If we’re going to be as beholden to the algorithm as we are it makes sense to have as many tools as we can, and for those tools to be as streamlined as possible. On a side note, while you can use the availability / unavailability function in its current iteration it’s nuked so many seller profiles in the past - including my own recently - that it’s not really a feature sellers can truly rely on right now. The risk level of using it is just way too high. Main point of my post ends here - other rambling below re: the state of the current vacation mode feature. As an example of just how risky it is to use vacation mode, in November of last year I set myself as unavailable for 10 days to serve in Ukraine in a missionary/humanitarian capacity. I voiced my concerns about using the feature to my seller plus manager due to some poor experiences I had in the past with the feature, but she assured me they had updated it so that it would have minimal impact "if any" and was "there for your benefit!" When I came back my profile was completely flatlined, and has just now - 6 months later - returned anywhere close to the impressions, clicks and orders that I had been averaging for 26 months prior to using the vacation mode feature. 6 months to get back into the favor of the algorithm, in spite of making every tweak imaginable and having a pristine record (confirmed with my SP manager excellent private reviews to make sure of that as well) and very high sales on the platform for years prior to using the feature. Rebuilding homes for families and trying to play with and lighten the spirits of 5 year olds who had lost limbs to mines since the start of that war cost me 6 months of time and tens of thousands of dollars in average monthly income here on the platform. This is not a unique outcome among the freelancers I know personally. Outside of Fiverr? No problem; my direct business came right back to life immediately, as in the day of my return I was already in talks for new projects with clients. It could be said that's just something that comes with the territory of working on Fiverr, but I believe it can and should be improved. For context I've also had really bad luck with taking even 2 days off via the "unavailable/vacation mode" feature as well, so it's not just a matter of that November stint being longer. Not what I'd call a safe and reliable feature, at least based on my experience. YMMV of course, but my trust in that as it is is gone.