On abandoning Fiverr (Or: the rocky path to economic sustainment for a green self-producer)
Last week I completed what will probably be my last order as a seller on Fiverr for a while. I was on the platform for 4ish years and in this arguably short period of time I've seen it change quite a bit (as both me and the entire world did). I thought I'd document it here.
Context! When I opened my Fiverr account I was in full time employment (retail) and living in London, and I did so out of frustration for being forcefully cut off from my table-mates and not able to work on roleplaying campaigns with them in mind. I figured: I want to do it, I'm able to do it, maybe someone has the opposite problem. I'll work as a backstory/lore writer. After producing some alright banners for my profile (I still struggle at finding the grey area between mechanical self-promoting and keeping a public image that feels genuine) I set up my gig. At first nothing happened, and life went on just the same. I never really understood the saying of the falling tree in the empty forest, but I guess it works here. Lots of spam, that I remember, but not much real movement.
3-6 months later or so, I received my first order.
It went well, more followed.
Those also went well.
I felt like I was doing something for me rather than for a client I would never realistically meet. This was before me figuring out what a narrative designer even is, so I was just doing what I used to do as a GM to help my players have fun, but with a small fee attached.
Side note: pricing. I don't think I ever really figured out Fiverr pricings. I looked at what the "bigs" in my category offered and tried to offer around the same but for a lot less money. I moved figures around depending on the season, offered flat discounts, increasing discount but ultimately almost always cutting out a custom deal that was on the side of the customer. I never wanted to be a shark. Maybe it was the wrong approach from the start but anyway, when the value of the USD plummeted, so did my Fiverr earnings (since I had to exchange them for either GBP or EUR), only getting worse since. That's life I guess.
It felt pretty good, especially the positive reviews felt like an acknowledgment (and my therapists know how little I had of that growing up), so I guess I was just satisfied to be in that spot, at least for a bit. I "expanded" to different gigs (utterly unsuccessfully looking back at it: few clicks, even less orders) and set up a little website, a little portfolio, etc. Most importantly, I transitioned to a part time position in my workplace to accommodate this old, yet renewed, thirst in me to just design and write and play. I joined new local circles, played more and more and worked less and less. It wasn't really sustainable, given how expensive life was getting in England, but I was already compromising my mental health a lot in that period, and I felt that a breaking point was fast approaching.
Fast forwards a few months later, I'm back in my hometown in Italy. I cashed out. At first temporarily, then semi-permanently. Now, a few years in, pretty much permanently. Never say never. Suddenly unemployed and couchsurfing, doubling down on my mostly successful little career on Fiverr seemed to be a reasonable venue. So I did. It was late 2022 when this happened, and you might already tell that if a kicker is coming, it's might as well be now.
Generative "AI" became a thing of the masses around this time, and I immediately felt the usual cocktail of emotions a creative or artisan feels when confronted with the reality of technological replacement. Denial, defiance, curiosity, existential dread. Anyway, I knew that for the common client I had instantly been made redundant. Especially since I was a little fish in a large pond, I had to work outside my comfort zone to survive. So I worked on more videogame projects, more orders that integrated AI and tried to reinvent myself to escape the tide. I even became an "AI Trainer" slave for a while while I could stomach it, but that's for another story.
My table-mates that I had left and now came back to, couldn't they have helped me? Well, I was open to it, but they quietly refused. I feel like I'm only part of the problem there anyway.
Fiverr also changed, becoming much more AI-friendly (what a dumb decision, but I guess a few must have profited from it) and introducing a new algorithm-based tier system that influenced the overarching level system (based on very direct stats, like the rating average, answer time, total orders, etc), which from what I could gather was essentially based on engagement? Like YouTube, like TikTok? Anyway, this meant that as soon as I had done enough to level up in that little internal exposition mechanism, I was pushed back down by this new engagement-based score. I tried to fight it for a bit, and then I gave up.
The world just became an increasingly more sorrow place overall, I'm not the one that needs to tell you that. It took me a year or so to get my shit together, but I figured that now that I gained a bit of experience in writing for different goals and systems, I might as well try to produce something not for a single client, but for everyone - myself included.
Self-producing is, admittedly, the artist' path. I'm still very green at it, my network is basically the same since I was doing ok on Fiverr - and I'm still somehow hoping to also get a job or freelance position out of it, since I am ultimately a lower class NEET increasingly in need of sustainment. And it's not like I can just pretend I will be "discovered" any day now.
I can only improve, be the change I want to see in the world, and hope good will follow.
So far my projects have been doing ok on all fronts, but the economic one. I made a grand total of 2 euros from my first three games (and, funnily enough, it came in first few days of the launch of my very first one-page joke tarot/duelmasters fusion game) but I'm willing to keep trying, since by now I have so little to loose.
On the light of this situation, my last few orders on Fiverr (as usual in the spring and the fall my profile suddenly comes back to life like a bear in and out of hibernation) have been especially frustrating. I did not feel in control anymore. Well, one was a straight up scammer that ordered something from me just to crush out for a single typo and leave a bad review (my first! What a rush!) and the other was a-ok but something felt off within me. When I started Fiverr it felt like doing something for me, while now it doesn't feel much more than ticking a set of boxes. I cannot even justify it to myself by saying that I do it for the money, since half of the little I charge vanishes in the USD to GBP to EUR exchange. It feels, now more than ever, like an office job.
I decided to just pause my gigs, accepting work from my pre-existent and dedicated customers (thank you always). And to focus on my books, games, ideas and creations, which are the thing that now gives me the most satisfaction and drive. It might be the last in a long string of poor decision for my economic health, but if I stay afloat long enough it might have been worth it. Waiting for that break. Working for that break.
I seemingly tanked my first job interview in 2 years of research the other week, and I got a bit sick these past few days. I need to get back to writing.
If anyone reached this, thanks for reading.