{"id":6518,"date":"2012-03-13T04:35:38","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T08:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=6518"},"modified":"2022-04-22T14:28:33","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T18:28:33","slug":"commissions-moving-the-goalposts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/commissions-moving-the-goalposts\/","title":{"rendered":"Commissions: moving the goalposts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I launched my <a href=\"\/commissions\/\">pattern commissions page<\/a> on Friday, I wasn&#8217;t sure which of these scenarios to expect:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>I might get no interest at all<\/strong> &#8211; I didn&#8217;t think that would happen, but as a worst case scenario I&#8217;d have lost nothing more than the time taken to set up the database and code the page.<\/li>\n<li><strong>I might get a few nibbles, and a pattern commission every couple of months<\/strong>  &#8211; this was my predicted outcome.<\/li>\n<li><strong>I may get 2 pattern commissions at once<\/strong> &#8211; I didn&#8217;t think this was likely, but, just in case, I built in a clause that, should 2 patterns get funded within a month, I&#8217;d only collect the pledges for the second pattern after completing the first.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Well, I underestimated &#8211; in a big way. (I told you I was bad at making calculated business decisions!) <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/commissions3.jpg\" alt=\"planetjune crochet pattern commissions\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Eek &#8211; it&#8217;s going too well!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been less than <strong>4 days<\/strong> and I have one design fully pledged and several others getting close. I haven&#8217;t even notified my mailing list yet, so there could be a huge rush of pledges at that point. At this rate, my business could turn into full-time commissioned designs, which, while very flattering, isn&#8217;t something I can actually <strong>do<\/strong> &#8211; I still have all my other hats to wear, and a commitment to continue to make crochet videos and tutorials. I cannot possibly commit to creating more than <strong>one commissioned design per month<\/strong> &#8211; I can&#8217;t work more quickly without the quality of my designs suffering, and that&#8217;s not something I&#8217;m prepared to sacrifice (and, I&#8217;m sure, not something you&#8217;d want to pay for). <\/p>\n<p>Plus, the commissions are only for basic animal designs. Anything complicated, or unusual, or something I&#8217;d be taking a gamble on in trying to create a design for it, is not going to appear on that commissions list &#8211; I have to wait for inspiration to strike before I can design things like that, and I need to leave myself time to let that inspiration happen.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/not_commissions.jpg\" alt=\"planetjune crochet patterns\" \/><br \/>\n<em>There&#8217;d be no dinosaurs or succulents if I only made commissioned designs!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So, here&#8217;s my solution: I&#8217;m moving the goalposts by raising the total commission amount from <strong>$60<\/strong> to <strong>$90<\/strong>. Minimum pledges will still be $6. For the koala (which is already fully pledged at $60) there&#8217;ll be no change &#8211; I&#8217;ve already committed to designing that.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/commissions4.jpg\" alt=\"planetjune crochet pattern commissions\" \/><br \/>\n<em>The updated system<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve already pledged:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your pledge stands at the dollar amount you originally agreed to.<\/li>\n<li>The change shouldn&#8217;t make any practical difference to you &#8211; by the time my koala design is finished, I&#8217;m sure the pledges will be back up to the level they were when you pledged, or higher.<\/li>\n<li>As before, you won&#8217;t have to pay for your pledge until I&#8217;m ready to begin the design.<\/li>\n<li>If, however, you feel hard-done-by, just <strong>email me if you&#8217;d like to cancel your pledge<\/strong>. I&#8217;m not trying to con anyone &#8211; just to set up a system that will work in the long term.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m going with full transparency here and I hope you&#8217;ll understand my reasons for this &#8211; the whole point of the commissions system is to gauge which design ideas may be most popular, but without making a change to the system, all the options will soon look equally popular! It&#8217;s an entirely new system, and the challenge (and also the potential reward) of innovating is that you just can&#8217;t know in advance how successful an idea may prove to be.<\/p>\n<p>I expect the pledging frequency will drop after the initial flurry, but I may need to tweak the system a little more in the coming weeks\/months, and I may, at some point, have to shift the totals again. If I do have to, my rules will remain the same:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Any design that is already fully pledged will remain so.<\/li>\n<li>Whichever design is fully pledged first will be created first.<\/li>\n<li>The dollar amount of your pledge(s) will remain unchanged.<\/li>\n<li>If you really need to cancel a pledge, you may do so by emailing me <strong>before<\/strong> the design is fully pledged.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The first two points mean there&#8217;s still value in pledging early if you&#8217;d like to see your favourite design(s) made more quickly, so please don&#8217;t see this as a sign to stop pledging!<\/p>\n<p>I think this is the fairest way of doing things, but if you have any suggestions, please feel free to share them in the comments or by email &#8211; your opinion counts too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I launched my pattern commissions page on Friday, I wasn&#8217;t sure which of these scenarios to expect: I might get no interest at all &#8211; I didn&#8217;t think that would happen, but as a worst case scenario I&#8217;d have lost nothing more than the time taken to set up the database and code the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crochet","category-craft-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}