Money Is No Problem
“Money isn't an issue.”
‘Every Newtuber pays their editors differently. Some pay a monthly salary, others pay per video. Me, personally? I pay by the minute.’
‘Say it's 30,000 won per minute. Then a ten-minute video gets you 300,000 won. Like that.’
‘And once you build up experience and the views start rolling in, you add incentives on top. That works out way better than just handing over a flat salary.’
‘The editor benefits because putting in more care means better numbers, and the Newtuber benefits because even paying extra gets them a higher-quality video. It's a win-win all around.’
Performance-based pay.
Most people would have assumed a monthly salary, but Yena had chosen a different approach — compensating by results instead, stoking her editor's drive to work.
With a plain salary, an editor who should have put in ten parts of effort could coast by on seven or eight.
But if the money grew in proportion to the effort, they'd pour in all ten every single time.
And even if the views didn't come, there was a base rate to fall back on, so no problem there.
Besides, since the pay rose with the videos actually produced rather than a fixed monthly sum, salary-padding freeloaders simply ceased to exist.
“...So I plan to pay per minute. You'll coordinate with the other editor who gets hired alongside you, and arrange things so you each handle more than half the workload.”
Since it was per-minute rather than salaried, she'd deliberately decided to hire two people.
One person handling everything would run into problems with the sheer number of videos and the hours involved, so they'd split the work.
Each would have a different editing style, so exchanging ideas would raise the quality of the videos, too.
Not bad at all.
—Whatever you say, Boss! Anything works for me!
No matter what was said, White Autumn was simply overjoyed to have been rescued from hell.
—Forty thousand won per minute?
“Yes. As long as you maintain this kind of quality every time, there won't be any problem.”
Battery — the fifth applicant since White Autumn, and the next most impressive of the lot — let out a startled sound.
Newtubers just starting out typically paid ten to twenty thousand won per minute.
Somewhat established or popular ones paid thirty.
It was said you had to be editing for so-called ‘major corporation’ Newtubers like Yena before the rate climbed into the forty-thousand range.
And here was a brand-new Newtuber, with not a single video uploaded, offering the same pay as one of those giants.
On top of that, she wasn't even skimping on incentives.
“I believe valuable work deserves compensation to match.”
There were two things I considered most important, and one of them was recompense.
Even if things rested on fan goodwill for now, paying too little would shrink the value of the work accordingly.
For the record, that one came from personal experience.
—Um... can you actually afford that? You're only just starting your Newtube channel. Isn't it a bit much...?
“You don't need to worry about the cost.”
Money was plentiful, and the copyright club Yena had warned me about was already fully prepared.
“Money is no problem.”
I hadn't expected it to be quite that much, though.
I'd figured it would amount to a handful of clips at most, but it was well beyond that.
‘...Exactly how much of me have you been selling off out there?’
Truly, all I could do was marvel.
“Well... that's everyone hired.”
The wild horse (not anymore), White Autumn.
Battery, who had plenty of time and solid skills.
Hm, the male-female balance worked out perfectly, too.
To be honest, editors were supposedly more often men than women, so White Autumn being a woman had come as a mild surprise.
Her editing style itself, frankly, had been closer to a male editor's than a female one.
‘Shouldn't matter, though.’
Gender didn't really matter.
What mattered was whether someone did the job well or not.
I looked at the final applicant.
The one who'd been lowest on my priority list.
Granted, once two people were already hired, this interview didn't mean much — but I still had to hold the conversation.
Ding.
—Thought the whole day was gonna pass me by sitting here...
“Ah, I'm sorry. The earlier interviews ran long.”
—Oh no. It's not your fault, Ms. Lily...
A fairly androgynous voice, carrying an air of complete exhaustion.
It might have struck some as rude, but the clock had already crept past two in the morning.
They'd been waiting over three hours for their interview, so it was only fair.
“First of all, I watched the video you sent. You submitted a hotclip compilation, I see.”
Some of the applicants had sent over what's called a ‘hotclip’ — a collection of the most important moments from my streams.
A greatest-hits reel assembled from the best scenes of every broadcast I'd run so far.
Precisely because it was a highlights reel, the video was guaranteed to be entertaining no matter how lazily it was edited.
Which was why Yena had advised me not to hire anyone who wasn't exceptionally good.
But this final applicant had displayed skill that leapt clean over that bar of ‘exceptional.’
‘Still... the two people ahead of them are already at this level.’
Did that mean I absolutely had to hire this person?
No, it didn't.
Two people already fit into that ‘exceptional’ bracket, and the three other rejects were skilled enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with this final applicant.
Unless they had something special to offer, there was little merit in hiring them.
—Um... can I be honest with you?
“? Of course. Go ahead.”
Ahem. The final applicant paused, choosing their words.
Come to think of it, the username looked a little familiar.
Where had I seen it?
Appl...
—The thing is, I actually watch your streams every day, Ms. Lily. Even those, uh, seven- and eight-hour no-brains hunting streams, I watched all of them. I even sent donations and stuff...
“Ah, Apple Flavor. Yes, I remember you.”
The diligent soul who kept sending the minimum-amount ten-thousand-won donations.
They chatted often, too, but as far as I recalled they were a decent distance removed from what you'd call a ‘problem’ viewer.
Why do I remember? Because a Heaven-Scented Human has an excellent memory.
Granted, my real-world body had degraded to ordinary-human levels, but the streams themselves took place in Deoen, where my body had largely recovered — so my memories of that side were vivid.
Apple Flavor kept hemming and hawing, agonizing over every word.
Afraid, perhaps, that something they said or did might be held against them.
‘You really don't need to worry that much.’
Did they really think I'd be disgusted just because they'd watched my streams for a long time?
If that were grounds for disgust, I never would have survived twenty years of drifting.
For Yena right now, or for me, there were exactly two kinds of people worth despising.
—So, um. I applied for the manager position too. And I was wondering, maybe...
“You applied as a manager?”
—No, doing both would be fine... Since there'll be someone else for the video editing anyway... I have some free time... And I watch every stream already. Um...
“Take your time.”
—Hoo... Right. Whew...
A manager... I did need to hire one, didn't I.
Honestly, the editor hiring had taken long enough that I'd been fretting over when I'd ever get around to finding a manager.
But come to think of it, hadn't I already hired two people?
I briefly pictured White Autumn working as my manager.
‘...She suits it perfectly.’
A wild horse under control.
I liked it very much.
“Are you all right on time?”
—Yes. Free time is the one thing I have, so I can be there for pretty much every stream. Editing's obviously doable too...
“Manager and editor. It'll be a busy job. Can you really handle both?”
—Um... the other person could take lead editing, and I'd do one or two as sub-editor while mainly working as manager... Would that... work?
Trailing off at the end of their sentence.
They seemed to think they were being too greedy.
“Hmm... that actually works for me. We do already have two editors, after all.”
Three editors for a Newtube channel that hadn't even launched yet was a little much, but I'd treat this one as a reserve editor.
Someone to step in as a substitute if the others suddenly got busy or something came up.
—...Wait, was I not going to get hired?
“Of course you are.”
Actually, yes.
The next day, alongside the announcement of all three acceptances, I took down the recruitment posting that had been sitting on the channel banner.
Total hires: two editors, plus one manager-slash-editor.
When I asked White Autumn, she readily agreed to handle manager duties as well, so for the time being I figured I wouldn't need to hire another manager.
Two people should be enough for now.
If managing them became a hassle later, we'd bring on more then.
Of course, I intended to pay the manager's salary properly as well.
“Alright, everyone, introduce yourselves, and I'll set up the group chat.”
I briefly invited them to the Discord server to go over a few points, then created a KakaoTalk group chat.
It was the kind of thing you set up through open chat, or something like that.
It was a room where you could talk without sharing phone numbers — I'd heard that option was better for security.
“Nice.”
They'd all done this kind of work before, after all — everything moved along smoothly without a word from me.
There was a reason people hired veterans.
Someone who'd swung a sword once was always more efficient than someone who'd swung it dozens of times.
Granted, an infant Heaven-Scented Human wielded a blade better than someone who'd swung one thousands of times.
If you asked why... just because?
No special reason existed. I was simply born that way.
“So... I think the work here is about done.”
Everyone worth hiring was hired, and the Newtube channel was on the verge of launch.
It was time to return to Deoen.