[What's your favourite thing to drink? (recommendations accepted)]

I drink about 2L of a "local" spring water a day (Big8).
When I have soda, it's generally a cane sugar root beer or ginger ale (Chill Street).
When I have a tea, it's usually has cinnamon and/or hibiscus, and be sweetened with turbinado sugar or maple syrup* (no specific brands).
I used to drink carnation and coffee crisp hot chocolates, but both are Nestle so they're off my radar now. I haven't figured out an alternative I like yet.

* I have a bourbon maple syrup which is amazing. Sometimes I pour a little into hot water and that's my "tea".

[To Writers and Story Tellers, i need some ideas.]

Are these the sort of suggestions you mean? The Seven Virtues, the Four Humours, the Five Stages Of Grief, the Twelve Labours of Hercules, the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, Newton's Three Laws of Motion, the Hero's Journey/Monomyth.

[What video/board games have you been playing recently?]

41 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

no Pokemon though, I never played Pokemon

If you've played one, you've played them all. But, I feel most gamers would enjoy playing at least one.
It would be a pretty big debate though as to which one would be the best one. I'm not sure if any of the Switch era ones are good. Most of the DS era ones are (I racked up over two million steps in real life playing Soul Silver with the Pokewalker. I wish they did that for more games.).

[What video/board games have you been playing recently?]

I've been playing a bit of Terraria out of anticipation for the "Labor of Love" patch coming out soon. It's one of the few games which I got all the Achievements (before they added more). I'll probably try to do that again after this one is out.

[Does anyone else have buyers who always say 'if this works out well, I'll order more from you in the future' 😆]

@kosmtheandricWelcome to the forum! You and I basically do the same thing. I'm creating RPG content as well (though I'm more focused on what could be simplified as "one page adventures"), buying a lot of art and a little writing.

1 hour ago, kosmtheandric said:

First off, what I notice is a deep seeded (might be reading this too harshly or deeply) hatred or disrespect almost for your potential buyers or clients.

There are other vibes as well. There's also a permeating belief that quality can only be obtained from expensive sellers as if correlation is causation. You might also see yourself dismissed as a "hobbyist" due to not operating a traditional business. But, in my assessment, it's less an inherent buyer/seller dynamic and is actually more like classism. You're more likely to encounter prejudice from "top of the category" type sellers than you are from the main line/front of the shop sellers.

For your five "no follow-up purchase" reasons, I encountered 2/3 a lot. 2 typically impacts the schedule rather than the delivery. Possibly, the specifics of my requests have been causing the fraudsters to reject my offers, so I haven't run into 4 many times (though I did run into one using stock art as components). I get annoyed by a 5 style issue, in that the gig seems to only include images that would be their top tier. They present no sample of what their low tier option results in, and that's when I get some stuff way below what's expected.

For your three "may mention if" reasons, when I do it, it's mainly 3. I'm intentionally paying people to audition, expecting most of them won't work out. I _want_ to be able to dump a stack of specs on a single artist so I can sign them all off at once. Tracking what all pieces are needing spec, offer pending, offer accepted, delivered etc is a pain. I like variety in art, but it's too much management burden to not use some people repeatedly.

Hope your book does well! What platform are you going to use? (DM's Guild, DriveThruRPG, Patreon, Kickstarter, Itch.io's book section?)

 

[What is the best way to work of hourly rate?]

What type of task are you referring to?

I think most sellers have an idea of how long a task typically takes them, and then puts their gig price out based on the sum of those anticipated hours. They don't typically offer a true 'hourly' option. For myself, as a buyer, I don't know or care how many hours it takes to deliver. I can't sit there and say "I want four hours of creative writing." I'm not a creative writer, so I don't know what that will get me. I understand what I need to get, and how much money I have available to get it, so I go by the quotes for deliverable.

To me, hourly wage is for services which require attentiveness or availability. I'm not immediately thinking of any which are on fiverr.

[Music for work]

I do a lot of writing. I find really lyrical songs can distract me. I tend to focus on mostly instrumental song.

Nujabes - Aruarian Dance
Jou Beats - Brasil
Saor Patrol - Black Bull
A Tribe Called Red - Electric Pow Wow Drum

But, probably the most distinct or interesting to me is gamelan music. Not sure how exotic it would be for the global audience here though:

 

[Does anyone else have buyers who always say 'if this works out well, I'll order more from you in the future' 😆]

If you stick to your guns and deliver good enough stuff, the buyer might even offer more work and more money.
(This is from a conversation with a seller I would end up ordering several times, after the third delivery when I had a good enough idea of what I would be getting.)

[Will DALL-E take up creative jobs or make them more efficient?]

Speaking as someone who buys a lot of art, and has seen a lot of DALL-E examples; I don't see me switching to entirely using AI any time soon. Right now it's good for prototyping/concepts and placeholders for market testing/pitches. A lot of commercial-release art requires specific details dictated by things like consumer psychology. I expect that in the near future there will be people whose job is to "engineer" DALL-E art; people who have a strong intuitive sense of what inputs will get the desired results (like how IT nowadays is more about knowing what to google). There's also a question of what kind of inputs, or how many reference images, it would need to be supplied to be able to replicate a new/original character.  

To me, DALL-E is a jacquard loom. Probably it will reach a point where people who do their job the old way will get out-competed, But, if someone gains the skills needed to operate the tool in addition to their old skills, they get to be at the forefront of production revolution and reap the rewards. I've been in the game industry since 2001, and have seen a wide range of similar advancements. Every advancement was followed by more developers entering the industry and more games coming out. They made the markets more competitive as the bar to entry was lowered so that people with less time and money can get in on it. 

Like, I expect the near-future workflow looks like "Traditional Artist is assigned new character development. Traditional Artist uses DALL-E to churn out a variety of design options, and passes those back to the Producer. The Producer selects a DALL-E work as a basis and provides notes with that framework. The Traditional Artist then makes a proper piece based on the annotated DALL-E piece." If I had my own access to DALL-E, I could see me using it to create annotated reference images for what I send to Fiverr artists.

[What Game You Play Mostly?]

If a Fiverr user is a twitch streamer, I suspect they're most likely streaming in the Creative category to show off their work. Plus, Just Chatting has three times the viewers of any of the games. I could see someone in VO getting in there to read stories for subs.

[What's the best way to give comissioned people credit (and is it allowed)?]

Basically, if you purchased Commercial Use Rights for the gig, or the gig was silent on the topic of Commercial Use Rights (which then defaults to including it, per the site ToS), you can do whatever you want. Asking consent is good manners. I'm a buyer as well, and I do the same thing. I've neither seen nor heard of any limit against it.

[New forum feature?]

Just the other three:  Overview, Content View Behavior, Fiverr.

[New forum feature?]

Odd. I don't have a Security and Privacy option in my account settings. I have the other tabs.

[We’ve Got to Take Care of Ourselves!]

2 hours ago, fiveroptic1 said:

I still play 5 a side (soccer) twice, three times a week

You pretty much need to eat what you like. That's a lot of activity! How long are your matches? Just go until dark, first to five points, standard 1.5h matches?

[Is Fiverr doing some housekeeping?]

Maybe Fiverr could add a Private Review for sellers to apply to buyers, and then Fiverr makes those reviews available via Seller Plus? That gives a sort of financial incentive for Fiverr to implement the system.

[Q2 2022 Fiverr shareholder report provides great insight on the future direction of Fiverr. Thoughts?]

12 minutes ago, daviddoyle621 said:

do actual humans even exist here that represent the company

On the forum? Not that I can recall having seen. I believe even most or all of the moderators are sellers. I may have seen someone claiming to be a Fiverr employee once.
Or, do you mean even Customer Support is not responding? Historically they've responded to me in about two hours. Has your ticket been open two weeks in zendesk?

[Q2 2022 Fiverr shareholder report provides great insight on the future direction of Fiverr. Thoughts?]

22 minutes ago, daviddoyle621 said:

You need to have a very clear initial trial period with sellers - they need to be under close scrutiny for at least the first 10 jobs. 

You need to have refunds done like it is not a 3rd world enterprise or some kid in 8th grade.

You need to have actual employed people respond at some point - that is a person who is not an avatar, but has a beating heart and lives in real time.

it would probably be cost prohibitive to do across the board, but for gigs and transactions in the price range your describing, it has to make economic sense to do those things. Especially the third thing, for someone who's immediately dropping 1k+ right off the bat. It takes me months to spend that much. Maybe they just need to massage the triggers on when someone is offered/enrolled in VID or a similar funnel. Like, the average buyer spends 260 bucks in a year. That's one order worth five buyers. If you're going to use retention tactics, gotta start at the top, and that should be pretty close. (By my own napkin math, presuming the power law holds true, spending 3k in a year puts someone in the top 1% of buyers.)

[Q2 2022 Fiverr shareholder report provides great insight on the future direction of Fiverr. Thoughts?]

"The rise of the creator economy is the latest trend that Fiverr is able to lean into. Independent content creators, curators and community builders often operate in a solopreneur or small business fashion, with limited resources and a high cadence of digital needs especially in content and digital marketing. Fiverr’s unique e-commerce model - fast, cost efficient, global talent access - resonates well with this community."

I feel seen. Just wish there was an easier way to find and connect with similar creators/buyers to share relevant tips and strategies. (The Tips for Buyers forum tends to just be sellers indirectly self-promoting.)

[Is Fiverr doing some housekeeping?]

I either complete or skip my reviews immediately. I have no orders in Awaiting Review to get an idea of timeframe.
If I end up with a "not ideal" delivery, I'll leave it and check the Awaiting Review intermittently to see how long it goes.

[What will you have for dinner tonight?]

It's too hot here to cook, sadly.

Sometimes I just microwave some broccoli and toss some hot sauce and parmesan on it. But otherwise I'm getting a lot of delivery. It ranges from basic cheeseburgers to chicken pecan salads. No idea what I'll do tonight.

I'm waiting for it to get cool enough to start up the stove and slow cooker again. I like making beef stews or pulled pork in the slow cooker, or baking chicken and fish in the oven (typically lemon pepper in both cases).

[How Should I Handle This Situation?]

2 hours ago, smashradio said:

Isn't that, in fact, finishing the work before they get an order?

Yes and no. One could argue it's part of the communication process to get the order details right.

To clarify the "until I have no changes to request"; they aren't working the piece to completion prior to the order. Say I'm ordering a picture of a forest. The seller will give me a sketch of the perspective and tree density/positions with one tree in final detail. Maybe they went with bright green leaves when I asked for autumn. I'll give them another reference image, they'll change the colours. I'll say that looks right I have nothing else to change, and then they ask me to place the order, and after the order they'll do the rest of the trees, grass, sky, birds, etc. Only about 20% of the work would be done before the order, and all the work to that point has the goal of getting agreement on the spec.

I figured this is why sellers were so adamant* about being contacted before placing an order; to know if they could reasonably meet the buyer's needs before the order starts. A number of the sellers who've set their arrangements this way are level twos.

* There's a handful who have gotten mad at me for ordering before they did the preliminary sketch, even though they agreed to do the work when I contacted them before placing an order. As "unprofessional" as it may be, and as much as "no true business" would do it; it seems to be the way fiverr sellers in general operate at the lower price range. n=100

[How Should I Handle This Situation?]

The described behaviour is decently common among the artists I've contacted. I wanna say maybe 1 in 6 do this to varying degrees?
I haven't had anyone want to "finish" a work before I placed the order though. Most give previews until I have no changes to request, and then ask that I place the order.
If you're worried about what's being done on the seller's end, maybe ask to see how the work is going "in case there is already something needing revision". After all, they "wouldn't want to need to revise a long animation". They should be checking in early and often to "minimize the impact of change requests". If they have nothing to show, stop investing your time in the guy and invest it in another "talent search". There's a lot of reasons where a previously viable seller may become non-viable, so it's a good practice to acclimate to pivoting to new sellers. Make tasks smaller and more portable so if a seller fails the task can be shifted quickly and easily. I'm finding it's moderately necessary to churn through sellers, but I'm finding it decently rewarding with "diamond in the rough" sellers turning up fairly often.

 

[So... any big plans for August?]

Last time there was a similar topic in June, I said I needed to finish seven weeks of content every month. I finished two. But it's been two in a row though, so my patreon at least currently gives the appearance of consistency.

I can maintain that illusion. I have three sets where I have all the content and just need to do a formatting pass then create the scheduled posts. I can do that tonight, and will start right after this.

I have all but three pieces of art to have all I need for an additional seven weeks of content. For those weeks though, the writing is only about half done. I can see it taking me August to finish those depending on how well I can find and onboard writers while keeping my cost per page reasonable.

There's another six weeks of content where the writing is half-done, but only a quarter of the art is done. I need to make spec for those pieces. That's a couple evenings. I have a roster of reliable artists I can hit up though once the specs are ready. I can probably finish the art this month and maybe get the writing done in the same time.

And then I need to do the formatting and posting for those 13 weeks which would be a part time job some week if I want to knock it out all at once. It would be a surprise if I manage to do it in August, but that will be the goal. If I manage that, I'll end the month with a buffer of 8 weeks of scheduled releases, which will buy me enough time to get a start on all the other content sets which are just bare-bones frameworks right now needing both technical and creative writing, art, formatting, and posting. And that just gets me to 40 out of the 52 weeks of content I need.

[Fiverr is updating Buyer requests]

I wish this forum has something like reddit's gilding. I'd gild that post.
Another "vector" of getting specific/specializing that I'd like to suggest to research reviews of competitor services for the purpose of finding trends of problems. Create a solution to a common problem and make that solution part of the headline. Revise and advertise an improved process. Like, if an artist mentions they're going to have a preliminary sketch draft step, I'm more likely to use that artist because I know I'm not going to get a finished-but-wrong delivery at the deadline. Almost no one who does it mentions it. I fluke into it. Probably a lot of really professional people don't realize that a lot of parts of their professional process are differentiators on their own.

[Can buyers leave a private review if they just marked the order as complete without reviewing it]

Does the second prompt occur if a tip was left after the first prompt? 
I'm probably not going to test this one, but; Does the second prompt occur if a negative review was left the first time.

For me, the Leave A Tip prompt always seems to immediately follow the second Private Feedback prompt, so I feel suspicious that the second prompt is actually a retry to funnel people to the Tip flow rather than to refine their data. There has been times where I accepted multiple deliveries from multiple sellers in a day, so I couldn't remember which delivery the second prompt is referring to when it shows up later (it just shows the gig and not what I got). I just put a positive to be safe. It'd be bad data. I can see Prompt 2 be weighted less, even zero, due to how wildly it would end up varying from Prompt 1. They would put it out there anyways if they found they were getting more tips by doing it.