Cray
06/25/12 02:13 PM
173.168.112.109
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Splitting off a new topic:
Quote:
Does what I send in have to make sense? Can I just send in hundreds of thousands of random words and be paid for it? =P
Nope. BT ignores unsolicited submissions.
Also, the budget is set in advance, so even if you get a writing assignment you won't get paid more for submitting extra words. The process starts with line developers creating an idea for a product, working out a rough outline, setting the budget for it (including writing costs) and then asking regular writers to solicit for sections of the book.
The writing budget is fixed ahead of time based on the size of the book (long before writers get involved) because publishing costs are roughly related to the size of the book. No one wants a book busting the budget, because that means no net profit.
Because the book size is fixed before anyone starts writing, writers who go over their limits have their submissions cut down to size (if that looks possible), or they might have their submission rejected and reassigned to a writer who can work to the instructions.
So, it's not a system that lets writers write anything they want, as much as they want.
The pennies-per-word thing is simply how that pre-determined, fixed writing budget is spread among (potentially) many different writers. In one book, you might have writers turning in 30,000-word chapters, while others turn in 250- and 300-word short articles, and some have sections of sizes in between that. With MS Word supplying instant word counts on a draft, pennies-per-word is an easy way of figuring out what percentage of the assignment was handled by each writer and split the writing budget accordingly. It also helps calculate the budget in advance.
And as for gibberish, there are a few writers who deliver near-gibberish. The extra work fixing gibberish is dumped on editors, developers, and fact checkers, who are already busy enough, and they don't enjoy having to turn gibberish into the basic English that should've been delivered in the first place.
Edited by Cray (06/25/12 03:26 PM)
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