Art PACT: Paying freelancers in exposure

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

If you weren't injured by it, I hardly think it qualifies by the rudeness of calling it a mistake. Don't be rude. Imagine that's in red ink and adjust your tone because YOU guys dredged up my name from a comment 3 pages back as if it was the most important argument to make.

I'm sorry if you consider it rude. I was actually speaking in earnest. I consider what you put forth to be an outright error and am comfortable saying so.

I am quite aware that new artists have always tried to undercut old artists. What's happened in the last decade or so (in music for instance) is that the barrier to entry has lowered such that anybody can be a bedroom guitar wanker and then put out a CD or put together a dad band and play for free to beat out the regular gigging band at the watering hole.

Oh, for Gygax's sake ...

things have changed a bit more than the usual. Globalization, technology etc have all enabled that.

It's good for the businesses, but not actually good for the creators. If the full-time creators can't sustain a full time living like they used to, the market will cease to have full time creators available when a business actually needs that level of quality.

I doubt full time creators will actually become extinct, but the number of them that can be supported will be reduced.

You seem to be under the impression there were many of them to begin with.

I'm not entirely keen on keeping the wagon wheel makers in business for the sake of them earning a living wage, but I'm also not keen on a more valid industry (making art) being diminished because newbies can swarm in and give it away and businesses are happy with the cheaper work.

Look, as a writer who was tired of having to hound people to pay me what they owe, or not being paid at all, I decided to become a small press publisher. It's worked out great for me, and it's worked out for the artists who work with me, who usually get paid within an hour of handing over their work. That is made possible by the circumstances you rail against. I am now able to create things I otherwise never would have been able to publish, and am earning more money than I would have freelancing alone.

The way the industry works is shifting and that cannot be changed. I know it, and you also know it, obviously. Yes, the amount of crap hitting the market has climbed because of the lowered threshold for entry into the market, but so too has the amount of great product that otherwise never would have seen the light of day. There is a balance.

As happens every time a market shift occurs, you either find a way to adapt or you become extinct. Right now, you're the guy screaming about how the printing press will put scribes out of work.

Don't be that guy.

 

[Meatboy]

I am an artistic person, if not an artist. These days when time allows it I draw stuff for people for free. Usually rpg character sketches. I have also done free work in the past that has been published.

I am not sure if the "Art Pact" is a good thing or not but I feel that getting paid for your work is a good thing. Too often when someone wants to pay in "exposure" they aren't in a position themselves to offer exposure. Please remember getting work done for you IRL costs money. You can't get a plumber over to fix your toilet with promises. The same should go for creative types. If you can't afford to pay them, you can't afford the art.

P.S. the reason never entered the arts was because people always seemed to undervalue the most expensive part. Time. I watched friends, with more talent than I had, slave away on a picture for days for a hundred dollars. If you put that into hourly wage their a people in third world sweatshops making better money :S

 

[Morrus]

I think it's also important to remember that not only should publishers pay fairly and on time, artists must be reliable and professional, too. An art piece 3 weeks too late is sometimes not worth anything to a publisher.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

P.S. the reason never entered the arts was because people always seemed to undervalue the most expensive part. Time. I watched friends, with more talent than I had, slave away on a picture for days for a hundred dollars. If you put that into hourly wage their a people in third world sweatshops making better money :S

Part of being a commercial artist also involves finding ways to increase turn around and reduce one's time invested. There are incredibly talented artists and writers who simply can't do it for a living because they can't find ways to speed up their process.

 

[lynnfredricks]

I am not sure if the "Art Pact" is a good thing or not but I feel that getting paid for your work is a good thing. Too often when someone wants to pay in "exposure" they aren't in a position themselves to offer exposure. Please remember getting work done for you IRL costs money. You can't get a plumber over to fix your toilet with promises. The same should go for creative types. If you can't afford to pay them, you can't afford the art.

I think there are some examples of publishers who don't know what they are doing offering "exposure", not out of any ill will, but out of thinking good intentions are enough.

Also, you have some who may offer exposure but could be paying, too. The exposure angle is the least cost for custom work - ie no cash offered ever - and they may actually get it. I think there are valid reasons for offering something like that, much like their is with offering no pay internships.

There are lower cost alternatives to making art that do involve some exchange of money and investment of time (which is money), such as Steve's creative use of existing assets. Also, you can find paid for services at a very low price in other markets (which comparatively speaking is a lot of money there).

P.S. the reason never entered the arts was because people always seemed to undervalue the most expensive part. Time. I watched friends, with more talent than I had, slave away on a picture for days for a hundred dollars. If you put that into hourly wage their a people in third world sweatshops making better money :S

True. Ive had some publishers ask us for quotes on some custom art. We agreed on the time it would take to produce quality X (they seem to have an idea of how long it would take). But they had a budget of Y, which if you applied that to the time, would be a few bucks per hour of work. Then you apply the lead time to get to that agreement (negotiating the deal), and its even less.

Asset licensing makes a lot of sense in these cases. Steve's solution works well, though I do maintain my caveat to that approach that you can "tire out" an asset if its not modified or customized. Id rather license (or license out) an asset that's good than use unprofessional artwork I got for free.

 

[IronHag]

Thanks for creating this thread.

 

[gamerprinter]

P.S. the reason never entered the arts was because people always seemed to undervalue the most expensive part. Time. I watched friends, with more talent than I had, slave away on a picture for days for a hundred dollars. If you put that into hourly wage their a people in third world sweatshops making better money :S

That's where the difference is with individual artists. I know some people who can create serious masterpieces of artistic work, yet to took them months to complete. No matter how good a finished piece is, if there is an inordinate amount of time spent to create it, short of being a Picasso, chances are you'll never be able to get paid for what the work is worth, based on time to create it. Its not only important to be able to generate high quality material, but doing so in a reasonably short amount of time is just as important a factor.

Rather than being a pure illustrator, I am mostly a freelance cartographer doing work mostly for the RPG industry. As a member of the Cartographers' Guild, I know that there are many cartographers that create great aesthetically pleasing maps, however, many of them might require 20 or more hours to create a map, that I can create in 4 hours or less. Its not enough to create great illustrations, you need to be able to do so in a timely manner. And I don't mean those other cartographers are dragging their feet in the map designs, rather to forcibly work at a higher rate of speed in order to hit deadlines faster. The more maps I can create in the least amount of time, the more opportunity to do other commissions in a given time period, thus making more money in the long run.

One thing though, cartography doesn't tend to lend itself well to stock art channels. Except for the most generic mapped locations like inns, taverns, castles, simple villages and the like most mapped locations are specific, even named locations and tend to offer poor usage for secondary uses. I have been working on a line of semi-generic locations especially suited for feudal Japanese encounter locations, intended to be used for my Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG), but are generic enough to work for any Asian themed game. Still, I cannot really create a specific map for most publishers then be able to sell them as stock art to someone else.

Still to answer the OP, no, I won't work for exposure, but then I've already gotten freelance work from Paizo Publishing, so I am already 'recognized' and won't specifically gain a possible benefit, however, even 7 years ago (early in my freelance career) I never opted to do work free for exposure. I might charged a lot less than what I do now, but I never did it for free, for anyone.