Which subcategories should I be selling my sounds/music in?

[drakendinn]

Heya! I only signed up a week or two ago, so sorry if I sound clueless.

I have two gigs up so far, but the categories have left me a little baffled. Music seems to have a lot of subcategories - some of which seem to overlap. (Beatmaking, mixing and mastering, composing/producing are all things I do when I’m making music, for instance. I’ve marketed some of my music as suitable for jingles and intros, so that’s another possible category.) I’ve gotten a hundred impressions but no clicks at all, so I’m thinking I may have picked the wrong subcategories.

Here’s my gigs - the first one is background sounds (nature stuff, sfx), and the second one is for music. Can anyone tell me if I’ve picked a category that’s particularly wrong?

https://www.fiverr.com/drakendinn/create-natural-background-sounds-and-effects-for-your-videos
https://www.fiverr.com/drakendinn/create-awesome-sound-effects-and-music-for-your-video-or-ad

[drakendinn]

An update - I’ve put the first one into Sound Design and the second one in Composing/Producing. Hopefully these are relevant subcategories for the gigs involved - I noticed that the popular gigs similar to my own are using these subcategories, so.

If anyone thinks this is a terrible idea, or has any other advice as to what else I should be doing with my gigs to get clicks, please let me know.

[benedictrm]

I think the dilemma here is that most small Game Devs & Film Directors don’t understand the value of sound so simply use free sounds they find online. From time in Discord groups, it seems to me that most of them are somewhat violently opposed to paying for anything and would rather do something same-same which feels safe than step out to sacrifice even a Mountain Dew to get something unique.

Then of course your actual Q: What category? Again, with the overall cluelessness of people confusing all the terms, you need to be pretty broad as I see people advertising for sound engineers when they need a composer, producer when they want a composer, mastering when they want a composer, musics, audios, OSTs, and other similar non-words when they want a composer… Yet no one ever seems to ask for a composer to compose music or a producer to help oversee the making of their record, foley when they want sounds, editing when they want their terrible singing electronically mashed, mixing when they want their instruments balanced…

Your decisions seem in-line with others so either that is right or they are as confused as you are.

[drakendinn]

I’m a pessimist, so I’ll go with ‘they’re as confused as I am’ on this. It’d certainly explain some of the buyer requests I’ve seen so far - some very creative wording there. (I’m sure you’ve seen things yourself - my favourite so far would be one where someone was wanting a ‘Composer’, but the description mentioned nothing about music and everything about video editing… )

I think that’s an accurate assessment of the market, though. Humans are very visual just as a rule, which might be part of the issue re: game devs and film directors not buying sounds for their products? It’s easier for people to understand why an image might be useful for getting their message across, as opposed to a piece of sound design, even though (in my opinion) sound is just as important as the visuals.

(Also, I gotta say - I had a look at your site. It’s nice to see a fellow Australian! I was starting to wonder if anyone in the country was actually able to get any work in this area, haha. Love your work on Unrepentant especially - I know it was some years ago, but that kind of ambient synth stuff is my kinda vibe.)

[benedictrm]

Thanks.

What part of Oz are you in. I’m on the Gold Coast.

Unrepentant was my first film to go in festivals and we came out with awards - incl. one for my music.

It has been very hard to get any work (even unpaid).

It is like the “job” I just saw in my BR where they want a song cloned - which magically avoids copyright infringement right? This would be several hours work at least for $7 (less fees). And then they say no bot messages. Ummm, that pay is barely enough to keep a bot in electricity for that time. People seem completely incapable of understanding that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Or that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Anyway, we go on.

[drakendinn]

I’m in Western Australia, lonely little place. I’ve never been to the Gold Coast, though I’d like to see it.

Surely song ‘cloning’ is against Fiverr’s TOS? It sounds vaguely illegal to me. I understand cover acts, and I quite like using reference tracks if the buyer has them, since it can help with finding a general sound if the buyer’s having trouble describing it, but cloning in an attempt to dodge copyright… that surely isn’t right.

Huge no to the fee on offer, too - people really don’t get how much effort goes into a track. I don’t think I’d offer even thirty seconds of muzak for seven bucks, let alone a whole song.

A small update on the category front: Since I moved one of my ads into the Composing/Producing category, I’ve suddenly had a lot more buyer requests of late that are completely Not What I Do! Voice acting for a book, making a piece of electrical equipment (???)… I have to wonder what it is about the category name that attracts such offers, haha. At least the ones I got before were unreasonable, but not so off topic.

[benedictrm]

W.A. eh. Land of the swan (lager) and Jimmy Barnes. I have a friend over there, Travis:

Creating with Scene & Story - A Day At Thomas Oval

Cloning songs and all other attempts at avoiding giving credit and paying dues is very illegal & immoral but as far as I can tell Fiverr takes the “not our problem” attitude. Technically they may be right in that making a parody is not illegal in itself. Publishing it however is. Seeing a slighted publishing company is as likely to go after the creator, that puts the freelancer in the firing line, esp if they already know the intended uses as that makes them complicit stealing from their own colleagues. Low, low, low.

I clock at least 8 hours to make anything worth putting online. Even at hole-digging money that is $200. At specialist money that is $440+. 20+ hours in-total is more likely, esp when people want fake orchestras and pointless revisions (which are often complete rewrites seeing when they said Metal they really meant emo and by emo they really meant lo-fi and only that one example they didn’t send but surely was obvious).

This is why I avoid $5 buyers as they rarely have their swan lagers in line enough to get any result worth putting in my portfolio (the only possible win I could have at this price).

Sadly not unexpected in on the category move seeing people thing Producer means one who produces whatever I want. I want a peach for desert so I better hire a Producer (seeing I heard farmers are primary producers which means they produce peaches). Language has become pointless indeed. Probably still where you need to be. How about making a Gig that is more specialized for a higher price to weed out the clueless?