Questions on right livelihood

Hi again, all. Lexi's back with some more (hopefully well-reasoned) queries for you all. This time, however, I wish to intersperse bits of my rationale, so I beg your indulgence in advance.

First of all, let me state that I wish to buy a piece of land in a Mature or Restricted zone no larger than 512 sqaure meters; Though I have paid for the privilege of being here, I am a person of very humble RL means, and SL offers me a potential means for infinitely varied entertainment and fun for far less than it would cost me in RL. The fact that I can earn a Linden or two here and there by doing things I enjoy is icing on the cake.....but I digress; the reason I want land in a mature or better zone is for the freedom of action it affords; I can have anything I want from a prim workshop (both my partner and I are keen to learn the art and science of prim torture and all associated arts) to a medievally-themed strip joint to a Shinto shrine and back again without inflaming whatever passes for this community's bluenose brigade. As this is an 18+ community, I have absolutely no interest in anything pertaining to underagedness in any aspect whatsoever, but also have absolutely no wish to inflict my particular kinks (and I have a few...) on anyone else; it would, after all, frighten the horses. So with this all in mind, would anyone have any recommendations for a trustworthy realtor?

Secondly, I want a job; something I can earn a few honest Lindens through while I teach myself how to build and script. I dislike merely sitting in a chair as a camper. If I camp, I would much prefer to be a dancer or a model for that business. If I can have it in green, gold or black (where colour is not a factor), I will model anything the owner of that business wants me to and will put an actual smile on my face while I do it. Dancing? Bring on the sexy steps; if it will attract customers to a reputable business or club, I'm fine with it so long as it doesn't involve farm animals, lavatory functions, underagedness or any combination of the three (...hey, if I can't let loose a bit in my second life, I may as well have stayed strictly in my first). I'd even consider becoming an escort, but my problem there is bandwidth; mine is narrower than I'd like, so I get dropped a lot. Therefore, until I can remedy that bottleneck, it would be better for all concerned if I had a job that didn't involve a lot of running about outside of a poseball. A very flexible schedule would also help.
Thoughts, anyone? Thank you so much for listening.

Lexi

I am in similar boat.
And at times I have exceeded what I could actually afford on land and tier to be here so that I could have canvas to play on. I wouldn't advise this.
My advise is following;
Do the best you can with what you have.
Read and Learn as much you're brain can digest.
The thing about jobs within SL they are often hard to come by for those without good connections or skills so at first you will need to figure out how to manage with what you can afford and do within your skill level.
You will need lots of patience, determination and good pair of reading glasses because there lot of reading, practice and effort involved.
Find some Friends and Mentors but do so carefully.

Firstly Welcome to SL,

Land in SL is relitivly easy to come by in various different guises, of course as a premium you are intitled to your free 512 of tier, this does mean that you wont have to pay any land cost but will have to pay for the actual land. Im not certain of the current land prices but 512's should go for around L$3 - 4k. Theres a few 512 plots in Badly moor that I have seen however the land search is your friend. Please be carefull though and search for what you want as its easy to get confused between mainland and estateland.

With regards to a Job .....
You and everyone else in SL, I dont say this to be sarcastic, but in reality or rather "virtual" reality there is no employment underclass for things like bus drivers etc, so the unskilled tend to get pushed into the sex industry, I by no means suggest that this is your only option but I constant recive requests for employment and when I ask the person which skills they have .... in general they have none. There are a few employment agencies in SL so its a possibility by signing up to one you could find a job as a shop manager etc. There might even be instances where somebody is looking for an estate manager for a private island.

I for one think your mentality on this is superb, Im a builder and i love what i do...

So again welcome to SL....have fun, enjoy what you do and take copies of those early projects as they are good to relect on later in life.

Marty

No need for a realtor. Simply open search>land sales. Choose the option that says mainland and the one that says mature. Type in 512 for the minimum size. Sort by $L per meter. Start looking around until you find a plot that strikes your fancy. If you have any questions along the way search for a new group called SL Land Answers Unlimited and ask someone in the group to help you via IM. Good luck!

For the financially constrained renting land is an option to buying. Last time I checked, no-frills mainland rental retailed for less than L$ 250 a week, so in the short run you get along with less than if you had bought the plot outright.

As for earning money, I found that most jobs in SL (if you don't have superlative scripting or graphics skills) pay for much less than they pay for in RL. So in most cases transferring in some money in-world (e.g. USD 10 will buy you a complete quality outfit, if ou do shop around) you earn elsewhere may be the more effective course of action.

But that's a matter of preference, I presume.

The best realtor (or estate agent, as I say, since I came to SL from UK) is yourself, in conjunction with 'search-land' and the map.

In search, land sales, choose the 'mainland' option, tick the 'area' option and enter 512. click search it will bring up all the 512 m plots for sale. if you then click the price tab at the top of the columns, it will order the entries by price, unless they are in order already. Then just teleport to see the plots until you find one you like.

Thank you to all respondents so far. Yes, I am unskilled in building and scripting....at the moment.This is changing even as I write this. Pattern creation, on the other hand, is another story. I do have some skill in creating virtual graphics. One thing I am truly competent at is writing. Is there a market for literature on the grid? I've got a couple of short stories written in the humourous fantasy genre.
Fortunately, I'm a naturally studious sort, so the study needed will be second nature to me.

SL is a medium which is more geared towards graphics than text. You could distribute text in a notecard (maybe protected to put at least a small hurdle in the way of a potential ripoff). However, my impression is that distributing text is not very popular in SL.

Make a pop-up storybok =P

I'd enjoy it anyway...

But text is usually in notecards, and all the ones I have were free, and I have full books in my inventory.. I doubt you could make tons of L$ writing, though maybe its a big market somewhere

If you're good at two (or more) languages, doing translations might be a decent gig. Not sure how you go about it - maybe post in the Services forum and see if anybody bites. LL might even hire you part time if you are fluent in multiple languages and have some support skilz.

I see a lot of info notecards that are _very_ poorly written - tons of spelling and grammar mistakes. Dunno how well it would work but you might be able to make some L$ by wandering about and fixing up notecards. Send the corrected copy back to the owner with a polite note saying that you're a travelling copy editor who works on tips. Ones that are a just a little wrong wouldn't be worth doing and you'd have to be careful on how you word the note so that nobody would be insulted. I have no clue if this would work but if it's something you really are really good at, it might be worth some time to look into it...

There were a couple recent posts in the help wanted for translators.. or at least people who could speak/write fluently in multiple languages

heyas;

if you are VERY new to second life, don't worry about getting land. you want to build? build in pubilc sandboxes. you only get 117 prims in a 512 lot, so after you put up the medieval shinto shrine strip joint and about two trees, you won't have enough left over to build anything. ;)

if you want to learn to build and script very quickly, go to the search, events, and select educational. go to every single class you can make it to. most are free. plus you get textures and scripts to use in stuff you make.

then, if you are younger than 120 days old, go to NCI in kuula. in the northwest corner (um, i think? its by the swimming pool) is the new citizens mall. pick up a free vendor (i recommend hibrid), and contact the mall manager. they will give you free vendor space there.
bring your creations to the newbie show and tells. if you're making good stuff, you'll start to get sales.


there was a writer/publisher group who paid money for short stories every week or so. i'm sorry, i can't remember anything else about them. in fact, i dont know if they're still around. :/ but you can try a search.


if you are literary/intelligencia, i suggest visiting the myriad of trivia games going on. no cost to play, and you can get 15-25 ells for each correct answer (if you can also type *quickly*).

personally, i also recommend the primtionary games (games/contest event listing) going on almost every day. this will help you hone your building skills (and speed). as well as paying out 50 ells each time you guess the 'charade' being built.

building shelter is also a good game, but it does not run on a regular schedule. it is supposed to be on at 4pm on sundays and thursdays. it is hosted by the shelter in wingo. they dont post on the event list, but if you have any free groups, you can join the shelter group to get the group annoucement whenver it is running.



if you look me up inworld and stop by my sky shoppe, you can click my Omni Orb for freebies, and pick up a notecard where i list a bunch of ways to make money. (and some ways to avoid.)

you can also look up first opinions surveys. unlike the other popular survey 'thing,' this is a legitimate company running real surveys for real businesses.

Have you considered hosting events at a club? Of course, if you get dropped a lot, it may not be for you, and you will have to be somewhat knowledgeable about using SL - sending group notices, issuing group invitations, dealing with griefers - and able to keep track of people arriving and leaving, keep conversation flowing, run contests, and so forth. Most all of that can be picked up relatively quickly if you have a basic knowledge of SL. It also requires enough of wardrobe to be able to dress up for club events.

I see ads here several times a week for hostesses, and though I haven't checked the classifieds in-world in ages, I think they sometimes appear there as well. (And I heartily recommend that if you are thinking of hostessing, you hang out in that club for a while before you apply and get a feel for whether you are a good fit for each other.) Personally, I never looked for a job - one of the owners of a club where I'd become a regular invited me to work for them. Six months later, I'm still hosting events there.

I am also a member of the First Opinions survey group, and I can confirm that they do conduct legitimate surveys, that they DO pay as promised, and that I have never received third-party spam from participating in their group. It's not enough to get by on, but a little extra once in a while never hurts.

There are several SL periodicals. Do they buy stories from freelancers or stringers? Maybe you could do some reporting.

Good news. I managed to find a 256m2 plot on the mainland in a mature area. I is a Henrietta Homeowner now. Huzzah!
Hugs to everyone who offered advice. I also heard about a 'forum group'; where do I sign up?

Search groups for Forum Cartel. If you can't join, IM one of the officers for an invite.

Congrats on the land. I predict you will soon need more than 58 prims to play with and will be buying a bigger plot.

256? That is a scant 58 prims. I hope you didn't pay too much for it!

I highly suggest finding a low prim house and decorating it. I have a freebie house that will fit on your lot and is only 10 prims, including teleporters, with tint & lockable door. You can find it on SLX or on my land.

Yes, I know 58 prims ain't exactly a lot. Low-prim housing? Excellent suggestion;don't be surprised if I do stop by and take you up on that suggestion. What is of primary importance to me is that I have a base of operations. I've also heard the term 'temprez'; can anybody tell me about that?

Temp rezzing allows you to exceed the parcel prim limits. BUT the prims still count to the sim limits. A prim with a script in it repeatedly rezzes an object that would normally be many prims, but the object is set to vanish a minute later, and must constantly be replaced by the prim that generates the thing. If everyone with a 256 M2 lot used temp rezzing to create 600-prim palaces, the sim would rapidly run out of prims for everyone else. Temp rezzing was intended for things like bullets, so a combat sim wouldn't be littered with pent ammunition.

It's a reasonable way to *temporarily* display a complex item, like a house or a vehicle that you are displaying for sale. But don't count on using temp-on-rez stuff to extend your prim count. Doing so only steals prim availability from your neighbors.

Well I can tell you what not to do, but still working on what actually makes money myself. I have a few successful shops, one PG one XXX, and you can guess which one actually pays the rent for my plot on that one. I also had a hotel and was managing a few SIMs recently, but I must say, nobody will rent land, shops, rooms pretty much at all anymore. With land prices dropping into oblivion (bought 1/4 of a SIM for 20,000L last month) you may want to try a realitor company for sure. Buying and selling land is huge now, developing it and renting it, a black hole that sucks every penny from your pockets. Needless to say the rental SIMs...gone, hotel...gone, pretty much everyone figured out that you can buy land for the same price as 1 month's rental in most cases.

On temprez: noted and thank you. That's why I wanted to know. Other than that, I'll just rez what I need at the time for the time that I need it. Well, then, my path is clear; I must become a Torquemada of prim torture (please try to ignore their screams if you pass by my place...) and a Picasso of patterns. Should be fun. I think I'll get started.

*relishes the polished use of similes*

Good luck! If it doesn't work out, you could always consider a literary career.

Okay, since when does land sell for 1.22 L per sq meter?

Just my opinion, but I don't think land prices affect rentals as much as tier-avoidance does. No matter how cheap you can buy land for, many people don't want to manage the monthly albatross that comes with it.

Maybe we're just opposite types of business people. My rental business is very good, but I never sell anything in my shops, except for the freebie one. I guess it's a good thing that we found our niches.

I was bit disappointed when I found out there was 500 prim limit for entire sim with temp rezz scripts but when you're looking at those products on SLexchanged they never mention this.