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]

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? :D

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]

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]

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?" :D

[e of pi]

Dang, that's a cool idea.

[Chancellor Valium]

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.

[NeoMatrix]

I love the idea about the watches, and some of the other ideas.

With the idea of paying for the right to write alternate versions of fivers, it can be part of an "Alternate Universe" subsite

How about we go to other forums and advertise with "Can I have 5 minutes of your time," then present them with a free sample fiver (not linked to the site in any way). Afterwards, you ask them if they want to see more. If they say yes, you get them to pay to see more. Bad idea if they know about the site. Good if they don't know about it. Could be a good way to start the Got Five? campaign. Yes, I know this idea sucks.

How about selling wallpapers and screensavers with the logo?

Zuke/John/TopHatMan Action Figures! You push a button and they will say any one of their famous sayings.

Bumper Stickers

[Chancellor Valium]

How about selling wallpapers and screensavers with the logo?

Zuke/John/TopHatMan Action Figures! You push a button and they will say any one of their famous sayings.



These I like. But for the action figures, surely we also need Karl, Binary Bob et al.?

And what about the starship 5MV? Toy tricorder (Warning! Looks very like a spoon...)?

[Lostoyannaya]

Well, you could always use Cafe-Press for the merchandise, especially if it's tee-shirt or mugs related. As for action figures...it may be more expensive to produce them than to sell them...

Even chairs with "DOOOOOOOM!" written on them? - I'd buy one of those!


But I like the idea of comissioned Fivers; it seems only fair. Over-working the authors would become a problem...but if you were to set-up some kind of raffle or limit to how many could be requested per month, it would work.

~~Lostoyannaya

[Opium]

How about...

"Five Minute: The Musical"

*crickets chirp*

*hay bail rolls by*

*sigh*

[mark726]

If it helps, the new guy (me) likes the idea...

[Nate the Great]

How come no one's suggested bumper stickers? We wouldn't even have to make any copyrighted Star Trek references. Just "Got Five?" a clock and fiveminute.net.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I like the idea of archives on CD (with of course a 5M clock label), and paying to write alternate versions. Those are both things I'd potentially shell out for.

[Chancellor Valium]

Err...How about T-shirts?
You could have one with an aubergine on the front and "guaranteed to scare away 99% of evil geniuses" on the back :D

[catalina_marina]

I'd go for the T-shirt. Like one of those I once saw Zeke wear in a photo.

[mudshark]

Err...How about T-shirts?
You could have one with an aubergine on the front and "guaranteed to scare away 99% of evil geniuses" on the back :D
Why is it that "aubergine" doesn't even show up in my French Dictionary? Never understood that.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Does it have "sausage", or is that just English dictionaries that are without?

[Lostoyannaya]

Does it have "sausage", or is that just English dictionaries that are without?

Nope. That was Doctor Johnson's dictionary before Blackadder re-wrote it and made a bomb under the name of "Oxford". Or was it "Reader's Digest"?

~~Lostoyannya

[PointyHairedJedi]

Or was it "Reader's Digest"?
Ahhhh! Do not speak it's name! :shock:

[Nate the Great]

"You should send that into the Reader's Digest. They've got a page for people like you."

Hopefully soon we can have TOS and VOY complete, so we can buy CDs of the complete sets. Maybe we can toss in some fun extras, like photos of the fivists and the series-specific Top Ten lists.

[Chancellor Valium]

Err...How about T-shirts?
You could have one with an aubergine on the front and "guaranteed to scare away 99% of evil geniuses" on the back :D
Why is it that "aubergine" doesn't even show up in my French Dictionary? Never understood that.
Or St. Cedd's college is never on maps of Cambridge?

[Nate the Great]

This topic needs a jumpstart, at least until Zeke starts making some money. Maybe we can pay him to not have week-long April Fool's Jokes anymore :roll: :lol:

I think the consensus is for watches, complete series' CDs, and bumper stickers. Am I missing anything?

[e of pi]

The little keychain thingys.

[Nate the Great]

What kind of keychains? Probably those ones that have a hard plastic shell around a cardboard insert, huh? I'd suggest the clock and red slice on one side and the "got five" and fiveminute.net on the other side.

[e of pi]

Or the slightly bendable plastic ones. But yeah, that design.

[Nate the Great]

My experience with flexible keychains is that:

Pros:

Bendable
More resistant to impact damage

Cons:

Fades faster
More susceptable to cold

I don't know if both rubber and plastic should be available, but look to the polls to discuss!

[Chancellor Valium]

What about pens?

[Nate the Great]

I don't know about pens. The thing with writing instruments is that other people usually don't see them unless the owner points them out.

"Hey, guys, look at my neato pen! ... Why are you looking at me like that?"

Keychains, bumper stickers, and watches are obvious enough so that you don't have to shout from the rooftops how cool they are.

Besides, we wouldn't want a cheap pen and anything substantial would be a LOT of postage.

[Zeke]

I can't believe I've taken so long to step in here. I noticed the problem when it started, so why the hell didn't I post? I have got to get into the habit of answering threads, emails, and such right away....

Folks, brainstorming about merchandise is fine and dandy, but I wasn't offering merchandise. It's not something I can do right off the bat. I've explained why I'm not going to use CafePress, so T-shirts and such -- which I do intend to make, especially since there's clearly interest -- will have to wait until I have the time to get things set up. The reason I started this Fivers on Commission thread is that it's something I can do right away.

So after Easter I'll decide on the prices and roll out FoC. (I can't do it till then; this week I'm proctoring and marking two exams, and Easter's right after that.) I'll start seriously looking into merchandise possibilities, and maybe over the summer we can get that going, but right now FoC is my best option for making money from 5M.net.

(Since we now have two threads, let's use the poll thread for merchandise discussion, and this one for its original purpose.)

This topic needs a jumpstart, at least until Zeke starts making some money. Maybe we can pay him to not have week-long April Fool's Jokes anymore :roll: :lol:

Hey. Week-long April Fool's jokes are a tradition here, and if there's one thing I know -- and there isn't -- it's that you don't mess with traditions. Just be glad it wasn't another Zuke takeover. I don't think he'd have stopped at six weeks this time.

[Nate the Great]

To paraphrase a very-old cliche: "traditions are meant to be broken." Did the prior week-long jokes involve overwriting the entire site so that readers were unable to view it unless they were paying CLOSE attention? I'm sure I don't know.

My experience with T-shirts, especially custom ones, is that (at least for me) you can't wear them unless it's a VERY casual day, and that (again, at least for me) people tend to be scared of wearing them often because the paint crumbles off bit by bit as you wash and wear it. Watches and keychains can be used almost anywhere.

Consider it the difference between "public" and "private" personas. T-shirts are part of our "public" persona, which could lead to odd looks from people who don't understand. Watches and such are part of our "private" persona. We can show them off and share the joke with our friends, but they don't make us look weird.

This thread could possibly be used to brainstorm alternatives to Cafe Press. If one of us has the ability to produce 5M.net merchandise and then sell them to you for the cost of production, allowing you all of the profits to maintain the site, maybe the option should be considered. I know that I'd do it for free just to have the knowledge that I'm supporting a great site and that my merchandise is being used by someone thousands of miles away. That'd be cool!

[PointyHairedJedi]

Did you ever investigate into that book thingy, Zeke?