ATTENTION ZINE CREATORS, ARTISTS, AND ANYONE WHOSE BUSINESS UTILIZES PRE-ORDERS AND PAYPAL
As of June 15th, 2018, PayPal has changed their user policy with little to no fanfare at all in ways that could literally destroy your business. I’m going to say this as plainly as possible:
DO NOT USE PAYPAL AT ALL IF POSSIBLE.
I know this is a lot to ask, especially since PayPal is the most globally accepted digital tender, but unless you want to lose access to your funds for six months and PayPal possibly forever, you need to read this.
PayPal Business accounts are now being flagged, locked, and completely shut down if:
1. If you haven’t shipping anything within 21 days of your first transaction
2. You’ve received more than 200 orders
and/or
3. You’ve made an excess of $20,000 (USD)
If this happens to you, you will not be able to access your money for up to six months. PayPal is NOT willing to work with you, all they will say is there’s nothing they can do, they’re cutting business ties, and offer you the MAILING address of their legal department. That’s right, you can’t even get a direct line to these people, they’re just going to tank your business by dicking around with your money for six months. Your only options are to:
1. Wait six months and frustrate customers, and by-proxy tarnish your reputation.
2. Refund everyone, possibly lose their business, and tarnish your reputation.
3. Pursue the matter legally, which will likely take longer than six months anyway, not to mention cost money out of pocket.
IF YOU ARE CURRENTLY USING A PAYPAL ACCOUNT FOR PRE-ORDERS, GET OUT NOW. Deposit your funds and part ways with PayPal as a tender, this is not a battle they’re willing to let you win.
Thankfully most of my stuff is filtered through other sites first but fucking here we go again.
It used to be you could get around this by marking your stuff as digital goods that dont need shipment notification but I dunno if that’ll work anymore. All I know is paypal has been making it increasingly difficult for a lot of artists and creators lately and it’s a logistical nightmare for a lot of us.
I need to finish my storefront.
Why are they doing this? It seems to make their service clumsy and unusable. Is Paypal drunk and dumped so badly they turned mean??
It’s likely another way to try and stop sex workers or adult content creators from using their services.
It started out with “you can’t use a stage name unless you have a business account”. Which means you get a chunk of your money taken as a processing fee, but get to use a “business” name instead of your real name AND LOCATION, cause that’s a thing they were forcing you to post too unless you upgraded.
People used to tell me all the time when they put a tip in my tip jar that it was telling them my real name and the city I lived in, so eventually I bit the bullet and upgraded to avoid that. (Which is why ko-fi was/is so great, because it’s essentially a paypal wrapper that lets you use the service while not revealing your identity and location.)
But they’ve been making it increasingly harder and harder to run an online business for anyone who doesn’t ship physical items that can be tracked. Like part of it is likely to ensure that customers are getting what they paid for, but when it comes so quickly on the heels of numerous policy updates regarding sex work and adult content, it is undoubtedly linked to making it more difficult for those people to use their services.
Patreon might be doing my head in with their site constantly breaking, and they fuck up on communication issues a lot, but this is largely why they changed who they do their payment processing with, to avoid paypals “no naughty business” policies. They still use paypal and Stripe, but they moved their handler to other countries with less draconian laws, and broadened to other payment processors because of this kind of thing.
When I get my own site up, I will not be using paypal, which sucks cause everyone uses paypal. But I also cannot abide their business practices and ethics. Or the apparent lack thereof.
I contacted Paypal TODAY so if you guys could spread this around so people that use paypal would know that’d be great!
So when you do digital goods you go to “TRACKING INFORMATION” and then select “ORDER PROCESSED” and you’ll be fine and won’t get into trouble!
reblogging for the last part to save a life cuz I was getting the “shipping info” stuff added to my digital commissions and i just ignored it cuz it wasn’t relatvent but i went through and updated it to “order processed”
This is demonstrating why you absolutely do not pour water on a grease fire.
holy shit
Okaaaay. If any of you actually have a grease fire in the kitchen put the lid on the pan. It will suffocate the flames. Don’t pour water on it, and don’t freak out. Cook safely!
Or throw flour on it to smother it.
/quick safety announcement
NO, DO NOT USE FLOUR, DO NOT USE FLOUR TO SMOTHER A FIRE.
YOU HAVE TO USE BAKING SODA.
Throwing flour into a fire can cause it to combust and make the fire worse because FLOUR/SUGAR IS FLAMMABLE. One cup of flour into a grease fire can have the explosive force of dynamite.
The reason you use baking soda is that it releases carbon dioxide when heated, and CO2 is a fire suppressant.
a lot of people have been commissioning my friends lately and…i havent seen the best manners when they were doing so. i think it was from a lack of knowledge rather than from an intentional rudeness, so im here to list some things to keep in mind when youre gonna commission someone.
give them info. do not be vague about it. if you send someone a few sentences, theyre just going to be confused about what you want. if its an OC, have ref pics. PLEASE be descriptive. being vague isnt really giving the artist “more freedom”, its just confusing them. we like for you to be very descriptive and specific to ensure you get what you had in mind. dont be afraid to ask.
if an artist says they wont draw something, dont ask them to do it anyway. youre not special. oftentimes they have “i wont draw” because theyre not very good with those things, or it just goes against their personal beliefs on what is right.
dont tell people you drew the commission. thats just shitty. i dont care if you paid for it.
TIP THE ARTIST. dear god, tip them. how much? 20-35%. a few cents will make them think youre joking. it works like a restaurant. you wouldnt go into one and not tip, right? and if your argument is “well they never included the tip in the prices”, restaurants dont either. you still need to have some extra cash to tip. and if you cant tip…dont buy it, or buy a less expensive piece. artists need tips. a lot of them undersell themselves.
dont give the artist a time limit. someone literally set a TIMER for me once. (30 minutes.) if they dont get it done right away, they probably had others lined up!
you get what you paid for. if the artist is doing VERY cheap commissions, dont be surprised when theyre not HD drawings. theyre not going to spend as much effort on a $3 commission as they would a $100 commission. thats unfair to the person who paid more. you pay less, you get less.
dont get angry when artists draw things for free for their friends, but not for you. dont befriend artists to get a free drawing, either.
you pay the artist first, then they draw for you. i know you might be scared they wont follow through, but if so, you can easily call them out and sue them if you must. if an artist works their ass off on a piece, theres nothing to stop you from running off with it and saving it. and they cant really get that back or get you in legal trouble for that. when you purchase something in a store, the cashier hands you your items AFTER you paid. thats how it works.
be nice to artists. theres a person behind the screen.
I read a lot of scripts. A lot. From professionals to aspiring writers to complete newbies. Features and pilots. Specs and treatments.
And 8 times out of 10 the fan fic that I’ve read over the last, oh, 15 years is leagues better than this stuff. It’s more inspired. It’s more compelling. It’s genre bending and creative and heartfelt. It’s well-paced and intense and funny and sexy and meaningful. It’s smart and thoughtful and good. It’s novel-quality. Better than, sometimes.
Rare is the script I don’t want to put down, but how often have we stayed up until 3am to get to the last chapter of a 100k fic? And it’s not even a fan fic author’s day job. This is what they do on the side. In their spare time. For free.
So my point is, fan fic authors, you’re good. You’re good writers and great storytellers. I know it doesn’t always feel like it, especially if you’re one of the authors who’s not a BNF and doesn’t get the notes/hits that a few do. And because some people still view fic as “not real writing.” You guys know the shit that gets made into movies. You’re better than that. So be better than that. If writing is what you think want to do, then just know you’re already doing it. You’ve already started.
And you’re more talented than you might think.
For all the fic writers I know, just a bit of positivity
this was awesome to see. i always find reassurance in my readers, you guys make me feel like a good writer and make me believe in myself more! thanks for reblogging this @positivityforpilot
This is what you guys constantly make me feel with your thoughtful reviews on my fic and I can’t thank you enough. You make me feel like my work is worth it and not a piece of trash. Thank you all ❤
the biggest lie ive ever been told as an artist is that u have to be successful at it for it to make u happy. u dont. u dont ever have to make a cent. u can pursue a completely different career and paint pictures for urself on sundays, write ur own songs on the bus, whittle a thousand little sculptures that dont look like anything. if the only fucking artistic thing u do in ur entire life is make little rabbits out of pipe cleaners just for urself bc u enjoy it, that is art that is worth being made. there is inherent value to joy
At age 23, Oprah was fired from her first reporting job.
At age 24, Stephen King was working as a janitor and living in a trailer.
At age 27, Vincent Van Gogh failed as a missionary and decided to go to art school.
At age 28, J.K. Rowling was a suicidal single parent living on welfare.
At age 28, Wayne Coyne ( from The Flaming Lips) was a fry cook.
At age 30, Harrison Ford was a carpenter.
At age 30, Martha Stewart was a stockbroker.
At age 37, Ang Lee was a stay-at-home-dad working odd jobs.
Julia Child released her first cookbook at age 39, and got her own cooking show at age 51.
Vera Wang failed to make the Olympic figure skating team, didn’t get the Editor-in-Chief position at Vogue, and designed her first dress at age 40.
Stan Lee didn’t release his first big comic book until he was 40.
Alan Rickman gave up his graphic design career and landed his first movie role at age 42.
Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his first major movie role until he was 46.
Morgan Freeman landed his first major movie role at age 52.
Kathryn Bigelow won the Academy Award for Best Director when she made The Hurt Locker at age 57.
Grandma Moses didn’t begin her painting career until age 76.
Louise Bourgeois didn’t become a famous artist until she was 78.
Whatever your dream is, it is not too late to achieve it. You aren’t a failure because you haven’t found fame and fortune by the age of 21. Hell, it’s okay if you don’t even know what your dream is yet. Even if you’re flipping burgers, waiting tables or answering phones today, you never know where you’ll end up tomorrow.
When I was 17 my appendix ruptured because I thought I was just having period cramps and didn’t go to the hospital so don’t tell me PMS symptoms are no big deal
this actually happened to me during my math final and i didn’t think anything of it and when i was later admitted to the hospital my math prof was asking me ‘you didn’t have to take the final! why didn’t you tell me it hurt?!?!’ and i told him i’ve had cramps worse.
he gave me 100
I am boosting the shit out of that reply, because I am twenty-fucking-five years old and did not know how to tell the two pains apart
Adding another diagnostic tool! This is something we use in the ER called the rebound test. Basically, appendicitis and cramps react differently to certain things. If you’re still not sure if you have cramps or appendicitis, take two fingers and press them into your abdomen where the pain is (try repeating this on the lower right quadrant of the abdomen just to be sure.)
When you press in firmly, it will probably hurt. Here’s the test: LET GO. Does it get better or get worse? Appendicitis will immediately hurt worse when you let go. Cramps will not. Go to the ER if the rebound test makes it worse!
THE REBOUND TEST IS REALLY IMPORTANT.
My husband got sent home from the ER with a rupturing appendix. When he came back and was rushed into surgery, the surgeon was super angry – “Why didn’t anyone do the rebound test?!”
Honestly I was lucky that my brother had appendicitis before I did. My mom and I both thought it was period cramps at first, because I was about to start my cycle, but my brother got me to do the rebound test and then my mom drove me to the hospital. By the time I got into surgery my appendix was already rupturing. If my brother hadn’t suggested the rebound test, I could have gotten really really sick.
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