David B. Clear
1 min readJul 10, 2021

--

Hey Johnny, thanks for the idea.

People have approached me asking for illustrations. But they weren't willing to pay. They wanted me to consider it a "collaboration."

Also, I have some problems with offering commissions right now:

1. My illustrations are core to my brand. They are recognizable and when you see a picture of mine, you immediately know it's me. If others start using my images, it dilutes my brand and thus harms my progress here on Medium.

2. Commissions are not scalable, whereas donations and Medium are. For instance, if I wanted to make 500 dollars worth of commissions, I either have to charge a lot of money or I have to spend a lot of time working on commissions. So right now, I think I'm better off spending my time trying to get Medium's bonuses and growing my follower numbers since, at least in theory, the eventual payoff could be much bigger.

3. Here in Spain commissions and selling services and products is taxed quite differently from royalties and donations. So commisions sound like an additional tax headache that would only be worth it if they could bump up my income significantly. But I doubt they can unless I turn myself into a freelancer first instead of an independent artist and writer.

Depending on how things evolve, I may reconsider in a couple of months.

But thx again for the idea!

--

--

David B. Clear
David B. Clear

Written by David B. Clear

Cartoonist, science fan, PhD, eukaryote. Doesn't eat cats, dogs, nor other animals. 1,000x Bottom Writer. davidbclear.com

Responses (2)