What's a Freelance RPG Writer Worth?

Freelance writers (as opposed to those on salary) tend to be paid per word. The rate varies from publisher to publisher, and on how experienced the writer is. Ed Greenwood, for example, can command a much higher rate than a new writer can. Obviously only you, the freelancer, can decide what your labour is worth - and if you're an experienced freelancer you probably already have a pretty solid idea what that figure is. But if you're a new writer, you may be a little lost. In this article, which I'll continue to update with new information, I'll tell you what rate a new writer can expect from various publishers.

[Note - this article will continue to be updated and tweaked; folks are suggesting excellent advice to include, so it's worth checking back]. Using publisher submission information on their official websites, and publishers advertising for writers I have compiled the below list. In some cases, publishers have kindly volunteered the information; thank you! At the moment, it's a bit sparse; but I hope it will grow. New writers can use this page to help them determine their own value and check out publishers that interest them. I don't want to tell you what to charge for your writing services, or what to pay freelancers, but hopefully the information here will help - a little bit - in making an informed decision. You can click through to apply for opportunities that interest you.

Advice: Here are a few things to be wary of. They don't have to be dealbreakers, they aren't necessarily bad, and you may well be OK with them, but you should be aware of them. This applies to new writers (and artists, for that matter).

• If you're doing work for somebody, and you're not being paid, you are being exploited. (Doing work for somebody is different to doing work with somebody). Volunteer work obviously falls outside this category, but volunteer work should clearly be volunteer work, not work paid in "exposure" (see below).
• Never work for the promise of "exposure", or for "experience". You should work for money. This is a common tactic, and is often puffed up with nice language, but it is exploitation and you should look out for it.
• Also be wary of jobs offering payment solely in royalties (or a percentage), unless the company has a verifiable track record of good sales - and they should be able to provide you with solid figures. Do not be afraid to ask for these figures; they're asking you to trust them and take a risk by working for royalties only, and if they refuse you those figures you should proceed with caution. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but do it carefully. Royalties on top of a fair rate is perfectly reasonable.
• Be wary of contests which grant the copyright of your work to the company; that's often a way of getting people to work for free. Look for contests which allow you to keep the rights to your work, or which will pay you if they publish your work. There is a caveat to this -- it's reasonable for companies to protect themselves from future claims of similar development to past contest entries, but, as Paizo's Erik Mona says, even then "If we publish it, we pay for it. Period."
• Look at what's being sold. "Work for hire" means the publisher owns the output completely. Other options include "first publication" (in which you retain ownership but the publisher gets to publish it first) and non-exclusive licenses. All of these are OK, but the last two are worth more to you than the former, and may make a lower per-word rate more palatable. If you're writing for an existing setting, keeping the rights to your work is far less valuable to you, because you're unlikely to be able to re-use it (you're not going to be able to re-use material about Drizzt or Yoda, for example). Be wary of work-for-hire combined with a low per-word rate.
• Be wary of pay-on-publication work. That means a publisher can shelve your work and never pay you for it. Take pay-on-acceptance work. Some publishers will portray their policy of paying-on-acceptance as a beneficent act: it's not; it's the baseline you should expect. That said, it's OK if the payment doesn't come instantly, as most publishers do their payments en masse on a periodical basis - but make sure you know when to expect it.
• Don't do "audition work" for free. You should be paid for that, too, although it is fair that that be at a lower rate. Game designer Ryan Macklin has a good article about this.
• If you re-use Open Gaming Content, it is reasonable for the publisher not to pay you for those words.
• If it's not in the contract, ask how stat blocks are paid.
• Finally, don't work in exchange for product.
• Remember, it's OK if a company can't afford you. There's things that all of us can't afford! And also remember that it's very, very difficult to make a living freelancing for RPGs. Some people manage it, but it's not easy!

Please feel free to send corrections or additional information.

The below list shows the rates I've been able to find published online for new writers.

This is just starting rates only. Experienced writers will already know what rates they usually get, and already have relationships with various companies, so they don't really need the information below. If there's an asterisk, then I've been able to confirm that the company in question pays experienced writers more, but it's generally safe to assume that these minimum rates are increased depending on the writer.

I've included links where I can so that you can apply to the companies that interest you.

�

Publisher	Rate/word for new writers	Notes
Paizo Publishing	$0.07*
Wizards of the Coast	$0.06*	Freelance articles for D&D Insider; other writers work on salary
Pinnacle Entertainment Group	$0.06*	"Higher for some folks, plus a % of any crowd funding we do if they're one of the principle creators."
Evil Hat Productions	$0.05
Atlas Games	$0.05
Steve Jackson Games (Pyramid / GURPs PDFs)	$0.04 (Pyramid) or royalties (GURPs)	After publication. "Pyramid pays 4 cents a word, shortly after the article appears in final form in our PDF"; "...our base royalty is 25% of the cover price (this can go up for authors with a strong reputation that helps sell books, and can go down for inexperienced authors or those requiring very heavy edits)."
Vorpal Games	$0.04
Posthuman Studios	$0.04
Pelgrane Press	$0.03*
Goodman Games	$0.03	Link is to Level Up magazine submissions; other submission calls have the same figure
EN Publishing	$0.03*
Drop Dead Studios	$0.025
Fat Goblin Games	$0.02
Dreamscarred Press	$0.02
Purple Duck Games	$0.01*
Frog God Games	$0.01*
Kobold Press	$0.01 - $0.06	"...strict minimum of 1 cent per word... Our rates for established, proven freelancers vary from 2 to 6 cents/word."
Bards & Sages	$0.01	25% on acceptance, rest on publication
Rite Publishing	$0.01*	Rates go as high as $0.11.
Raging Swan Press	$0.01
Open Gaming Monthly	$0.01	"If your submission IS selected, you will receive 1 cent per word for your first published work. If your work requires very little editing (fixing typos, fixing grammatical errors etc.) then that will likely be increased to 2 cents per word. If your work receives great reviews and we use your work in future issues or products, you'll receive 3 cents per word in those future products."
Obatron Productions	<$0.01	Savage Insider; Word Count: 2,000 – 5,600 | $15 – $35
LPJ Design	$0.005* (half a cent)	Up to $0.02 with experience
Rogue Genius Press	royalties only
Ephemeric RPG	royalties only	$1.00 for every PDF or e-book that is ordered

What the Publishers Said
Discussing this subject with numerous writers and publishers turned into a fairly lively debate. Some of the statements made clearly illustrated why it's important that writers make themselves informed. Louis J Porter of LPJ Design says that "You kind find was to save money at the beginning that pays off very well in the long run [sic]" and that "Do I think I could get to a point were I make $10K month doing this, Oh Hell Yes!"

The way LPJ Design finds ways to save money in order to make $10K a month is to pay writers half a cent per word. As he says "if you are a first time writer never have sold ANYTHING to ANYONE, sorry you bring no value to my company... You guys sound like the college grad who wants to get paid $50K for just showing up. LOL!" I found myself very uncomfortable with Porter's language; he later said to one writer "You can die from exposure. Just prove to me why I should pay you more? You do that, you get paid better." and to that writer he later said "And there is the problem, you think this is an equal relationship. It isn't."

That said, the same company's calls for freelancers on various RPG forums take a different tone: "So if you are interested and not sure you think you can be good at this, I will just say, don't miss out on your dreams because you are afraid to go after them...It is your job to loose."

I can't help but feel that "I can't afford writers" isn't an great reason to underpay writers. It's OK to not be able to afford something but the solution is to find some other way to afford it, or accept that you can't afford it. Many small publishers have addressed this issue by using services like Kickstarter, Patreon, and others, which are great alternative models, although not for everyone. Erik Mona asked about products with margins so low that $160 is too much (assuming a 10-page PDF at $0.02 per word) "Does it make sense to put effort into projects that garner so little interest from the paying public that they require shennanigans like that? Is $80 a fair wage for what amounts to 4 days of work?"

And, definitely, the majority of small publishers do not intend to consciously underpay anybody. It would be unfair to point at a bunch of publishers and chastise them for being exploitative, and many tiny publishers can really only afford $0.01 per word (although James Ward observed "At $.01 a word you get what you pay for.") As Raging Swan Press' Creighton Broadhurst (who is a very small publisher and pays $0.01 per word) said, "If I thought I was exploiting people, I would stop doing what I do. But I don't think I am as I'm forcing no one to work with me." And I myself know what it is to be a tiny publisher with incredibly low sales, so I can certainly empathize with that position -- most micro-publishers are run by decent people paying what they can afford.

I have no idea where the line lies, though personally I feel uncomfortable these days offering anybody less than $0.03 per word (I have in the past), and wouldn't consider paying $0.01 per word. But that's just what I choose to do. Most writers I've spoken to agree that 2,000 publishable words per day is a fairly reasonable rate. As game designer Rich Baker observed, "It's hard to knock down 2000 word days, day in, day out. That's an honest 8 hours of work. At $0.05 per word, you'd be making $12.50 an hour... I am frankly appalled at the idea that someone might pay (or take) $0.01 a word in the 21st century. That's saying a writer is worth $2.50 an hour." Paizo's Erik Mona feels that "1 cent a word is not 'bordering on exploitative'. It is exploitative FULL STOP."

[As a side note, using Rich Baker's estimate of 2,000 words per 8 hour day, that works out to $10 per day at half a cent per word, $20 per day at $0.01, $40 per day at $0.02, $60 per day at $0.03, $80 per day at $0.04, $100 per day at $0.05, $120 per day at $0.06, and $140 per day at $0.07.]

With luck, this article should give writers some of the the information they need to inform themselves when considering freelancing, and ensure that the relationship is an equal relationship. I'll keep the table above updated as best I can, and folks can make their own decisions. Please do feel free to correct inaccurate figures or provide additional information! Also, if you're a freelancer, feel free to share rates (don't break any NDAs, though!)

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[arjomanes]

All of my publisher materials are free and will remain free. As part of my Kickstarter stretch goals, I have released approximately $10,000 worth of art for free use by other publishers and creators, including all of the art I used in Spears of the Dawn, The House of Bone and Amber, Scarlet Heroes, and my upcoming Silent Legions game. My latest freebie publication includes an 8-page walkthrough of my Kickstarter production sequence for novice publishers to help them avoid pitfalls and fulfillment issues. I have created a free template module that recapitulates 1980s-style TSR dress; it includes both the InDesign source files for other publishers to use and a commentary layer to explain how to fit the page elements together and why I made the choices I did on each page. In the publisher folder I linked earlier in the thread, I included a short guide on basic RPG publishing methods and an in-depth analysis of TSR-era book design, with the InDesign source files for other publishers to rip and use, along with a set of Photoshop brushes with common old-school map symbols. I am currently working on another free template module echoing the B/X D&D module styles of X1-X5 and B3-B4, plus a short guide on creating old-school maps in Photoshop.

I really appreciate all the advice and tools publishers and authors provide for aspiring RPG content creators. As a graphic designer, illustrator and writer with very few RPG credits, I've been interested in exploring self publication. I think it's awesome that you're publishing this stuff and providing source files for free!

 

[CardinalXimenes]

I really appreciate all the advice and tools publishers and authors provide for aspiring RPG content creators. As a graphic designer, illustrator and writer with very few RPG credits, I've been interested in exploring self publication. I think it's awesome that you're publishing this stuff and providing source files for free!

If you've got experience in all three of those spheres, you have an enormous leg up already. Get yourself comfortable with InDesign, brush up on gamebook typography issues, and you'll be beautifully situated to giving self-publishing a spin.

 

[Kannik]

I've enjoyed this conversation and it's made me wonder about my own e-publishing experience... what kind of "salary" did I make out of it? So I did a back of the envelope calc and thought I'd present it here just to add more data/another experience to the mix:

Caveats:

• I wrote these without the intention of making a living from it
• I already was familiar with desktop publishing, graphic layout, writing, and more (I am an architect by day)
• I already had access to various softwares
• I did very little promotion

Over the three supplements I have written/sold online, I have received about 400 bucks (net payout, after e-tailer costs taken out).

I put in probably 20ish hours on each one, so let's call it 75 hours total to give it a fudge factor (again, as I wasn't intending to make a living, I didn't track hours at all, and worked on it here and there).

That places it at about $5.33 per hour, and perhaps less if my time recollection is really off.

In total, it's about 10,500 words of "real" writing, which equates to $0.038 per word.

For me it was a fun side project and so I'm chuffed with how well they have done (though I'd like them to be even more widely known, of course! ). To those who have turned it into a living, my hats off to you!

peace,

Kannik

 

[Vigilance]

I'll say this: I worked for Louis. He paid me well, promptly, let me (mostly) set my own direction and was pleasant to work for. If I was still freelancing I'd work for him again.

 

[Mouseferatu]

There's a big element here that's being missed. (Or maybe I missed it, in my read-through, in which case I apologize.) I'm speaking as a US citizen and freelancer here; it's likely different in other countries.

You think these numbers are bad? They're even worse. This is gross take-home.

Freelancing doesn't get you benefits. You're paying out of pocket for medical insurance.

Freelancers don't have employers paying portions of social security or other taxes. Freelancers and contractors pay a far larger percentage of their income in US taxes than people with "normal" employment.

So if someone's freelance writing rate comes out to $12 an hour? They're still making less than other people earning an actual $12/hour from an employer.

I feel for the publishers who can only afford to pay one or two cents a word. I know most of you guys are trying your best. But I have to agree with Erik Mona; whether you mean it to be or not, it's exploitive. AFAIAC, if you can't afford to pay your writers a reasonable rate, you can't afford to run a publishing business. Full stop.

 

[lynnfredricks]

I feel for the publishers who can only afford to pay one or two cents a word. I know most of you guys are trying your best. But I have to agree with Erik Mona; whether you mean it to be or not, it's exploitive. AFAIAC, if you can't afford to pay your writers a reasonable rate, you can't afford to run a publishing business. Full stop.

Its only exploitative if there's no other viable choice. There are plenty of other choices. There are the very, very few well paying writing jobs in the RPG market, and there are many more writing jobs outside of the RPG market that pay much, much better.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Its only exploitative if there's no other viable choice.

Completely and utterly disagree. You're paying less than the work is worth; that's exploitive, AFAIAC. But we don't need to derail the thread with an exchange of "Yes, it is!" "No, it isn't!" Pretty sure I'm not going to change your view, and I've been doing this long enough, at varying rates of pay, to know for pretty certain that you're not going to change mine.

 

[Tark]

Okie dokie I took the time to read through this so let me air out a few things first.

No one should ever enter this industry expecting to make it a full time job. Period. Not just in Pathfinder but in all other games as well. After I write this post I'm going to share it with a long time friend and acquaintance who was amazingly successful in their chosen field but never left his day job.

Yes the market is saturated. Both ways. Meaning that you not only have a glut of publishers vying to get what little space they can in a very small pond but a downpour of writers with no credits attached happy to take no pay for however much you'll take.

So what we have here is a hobby industry. That is to say very few of us on either the publishing side or the content creating side are even making a living let alone getting wealthy. So we treat it as a hobby, we operate on nights and weekends quietly building our resumes so we can maybe one day get picked out of the ocean of content by a company who happens to be riding atop that ocean in a boat made of money.

From that perspective it's not all that different than trying to get a profitable partnership on YouTube or Twitch. The difference being while our industry is held up by the dedicated few thousand those particular groups are held up by the billions.

On top of this we really don't have a good means to keep consumers really informed. Their's only one person I know of dedicated to reviewing 3pp stuff. But, where are the Reddit links? What about YouTube videos? What about more reviews on RPGNow and Paizo? I mean just say something, give some feedback, good, bad or ugly. That stuff becomes important to giving you more of what you want. Publishers want to sell you books so tell us what you will buy.

So, while we're talking about being exploited. I have to ask, where's your copies of all 6 books in Way of the Wicked? Where are your copies of Psionic's Unleashed? Cerulean Seas? How many books have you bought on Endzeitgeist's (literally the only dedicated critic and reviewer I've seen for Pathfinder products) recommendation? Did you know John Wick wrote an rpg about playing a house cat? When was the last time you got drunk and played Fiasco with some friends?

It is really easy to criticize someone as being exploitative when you have had no investment yourself into seeing that those who put the work in get what they deserve. And if you do that's great! Are you willing to do more? Maybe get more people buying? Because that's just about the simplest way to negotiate better pay rates.

So yes, Louis is going to be confrontational and frustrated when presented as the bad guy. But, being undiplomatic does not make him wrong. It's a reality in any industry that eagerness can only take you so far. Employment is not nor ever has been considered an equal relationship outside of those basic human decencies. You get on the crab boat you get a half share. You survive a year or two on the crab boat the captain might bump you to full share or just as likely bump you off his damn boat. You come to MacDonalds with no experience you likely start at minimum wage. That's just how it is. Until you can prove otherwise you're a pair of hands with a glimmer for potential.

So, you work at it. You build relationships, network, don't just write things, keep an eye on them, see how well they do sales wise and note that for later. That kind of stuff goes on resumes, fits in forum signatures, slides nicely on to the sidebar of your blog. Self promotion has been important to writers since before Mark Twain's infamous eccentricities. Heck, Owen doesn't even need to promote himself anymore but I still see him posting everyday on facebook. Stay professional even in the face of harsh criticisms and understand sometimes the best thing to say is nothing. Don't quit your day job.

So now that that's out of the way let me do a bit of unsolicited defense.

I have written a number of things for LPjr Design. I would be lying to you if I said it was a perfect relationship or if I was not frustrated every once in a while for reasons I choose not to get into. But, what I was presented with was an opportunity to work in an environment where I was virtually unrestricted. It let me poke out, learn new things, and try out new ways of doing things. I was given the entire Race's section in Obsidian Apocalypse and went unchallenged as I hammered out new territory in places unexplained up to and including wiping out entire species of subraces to make room for new races and allowing more options from old ones to flourish. So yes, Louis pays a low rate, but it's in part a mitigation of risk against the fact that some man from Atlanta might arbitrarily decide to kill off all the half elves and turn the human race into xenophobic isolationists which may make things bad for sales.

In August of last year I lost my job. So, I mentioned to Louis if he had any projects for me I'd be happy to do them. I also mentioned some work I had given him as part of a self willed effort to support another product I was a major part of. He had sat on it mostly because it just wasn't part of his plans yet. But, about a month after I reminded him of it he kicked it through and the results speak for themselves.

Could I have gotten better pay? Maybe. But I doubt I'd find other publishers who'd take a risk like that consistently.

And bear in mind that the definition of "new writer" is not really clear here. Is this referring to new writer as in no writing credits at all? Or simply no professional credits such as someone who has purely done fan and homebrew work? Or does it mean no credits at all?

That definition is kind of important. Paizo pays 0.07 cents a word but I sincerely doubt they'd consider taking in a fresh, untested, writer with open office and a dream. Perhaps before we pass judgment we should ask about the expectations of those giving the money.

In any case I'm rambling. There is a lot more going on than numbers suggest.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

[NU][/NU]

You're paying less than the work is worth; that's exploitive, AFAIAC.

Except here's where your argument fails. Utterly.

The writer decides what their work is worth TO THEM. What a publisher is able to earn on a product actually decides what the work is worth in the market. Ultimately, it's going to be that market that decides the worth of a writer's work.

A freelancer can tell a publisher all they want "hey, my work is worth X amount and no less. If you don't pay that, you're exploiting writers!" but if the market is not willing to pay a price at sufficient sales that allow the publisher to actually pay someone that rate, while allowing the publisher to earn enough money to make the project worth doing, then quite literally, no, your work is not worth that rate. By every definition except "what it is worth to ME, as the writer," the work is not worth the rate.

That's not exploitive. That's market economics -- it's supply and demand. And, of course, it's also only exploitive if there's coercion or the like involved. A publisher who offers a job that is entirely voluntary is not exploiting anyone because no one is being forced or compelled to apply for it. Saying "well, I'm an RPG writer, and there's a lot of competition, so publishers offering this low rate because they know this are exploting me" is not exploitation -- again, it's supply and demand. There are certainly more lucrative writing jobs out there in other markets for professional freelancers who are actually skilled enough to get them. And, well ... if you don't have those skills and writing for RPGs is all you can get, perhaps you want to consider that you don't have the chops to be worth what you think you are.

Oh, I know ... I'm just speaking as an exploitive publisher here, right? I'm the big bad enemy portrayed in this article. As Morrus put it in his twitter feed, I'm one of the publishers who showed up to have a "tantrum".

But I'm also a freelancer and professional writer who works in the latter capacity outside the RPG industry. I've also spent the last 4.5 years extensively hiring freelance writers outside the RPG industry for both long-term and short-term work. I've worked in and outside of RPGs as a freelance writer for $0.01/word and less within the past year for various reasons ranging from the work being of the sort that I can crank it out so quickly that if you calculated my rate per hour, it would actually be pretty high, to being desperate for cash at the time -- ANY cash, to the point where I couldn't afford to be picky. I certainly was NOT being exploited by taking that work because I made the choice to go to them and apply for the job. On the other hand, I've also netted jobs that paid me $100 for a 1,000 word blog I cranked out in an hour and a half. (Of course, with the latter, I needed to utilize my valuable SEO knowledge to land that particular job, but that's part of having the chops to get the higher paying jobs some other writers aren't qualified for. What you bring to the table counts for more than just your ability to use grammar properly and put in the time needed to get the work done.)

Frankly, the ideas regarding "what my work is worth" and "exploiting" writers expressed in this thread are the results of people who don't actually know what freelance writing is like in the world beyond the cottage industry that is RPGs. A true professional writer isn't fooled by such beliefs that there is actually some sort of magic number that you should calculate and say "this low and no less." If you're actually a professional writer looking to make a living freelancing, each job is taken on a cost-benefit analysis that includes numerous factors that don't get brought up here because everyone is too busy waving around the idea of a minimum rate per word like it's some sort of talisman. Factors like:

a) how long will the work take one to do? A small pay rate that takes one little time to do can very easily actually pay off better than a higher pay rate that requires slogging through the content, and thus more of the writer's time.

b) what else is on one's plate at the time? While hunting for higher paying work, are you doing anything else? Instead of waiting to hear back, filling the time with lower paying work because there's nothing else on your plate at the time is still earning you more money than hunting for the higher paying work alone brings in. Especially if the hunting ends up in no results.

c) is there some other benefit to taking on the lower pay rate? And no, I'm not talking about the "work for exposure" aspect that seems about as far as RPG writers are able to consider because they don't have experience in other industries. Writing professionally outside of a cottage industry means building relationships (well, it actually means that in the RPG industry too, but people don't want to seem to admit that, so we'll pretend it's irrelevant here) that can lead to more and better work down the road. That $100 for $1,000 word job I got? That was the result of building a relationship with a lower paying gig first.

d) is taking on the lower paying job actually going to teach me something I can translate into a sellable skill for other work later? When I was doing content management for a multinational company, I had a big problem in that far too many writers looking to write blog content knew jack about SEO best practices. That means many of them never made it past my paid trial. If some took on some low paying, quick turn around jobs that let them hone their SEO techniques, they would not only not get on my bad side by wasting my time applying for jobs their trial work illustrated they weren't capable of doing, despite it being in the job description, but they'd also end up qualifying to get the job. The same can work out in the RPG industry if the writer wants to use that connection with the publisher to ask questions or the like. Much of the knowledge I brought into Misfit Studios as a publisher was learned by spreading myself out as a freelancer writer first. If you're focused on your pay rate and just getting the job done, you're missing out on that.

e) am I actually likely to get paid? While working as a freelance writer in the RPG industry, I had higher pay rate jobs I never actually got paid for because the publishers didn't follow through on their contract. All the favourable terms in the world don't mean squat when a contract is broken unless you have the resources to pay the matter. On the other hand, the lower paying gigs have almost always followed through. So, from that perspective, getting $0 actual money in pocket at a higher pay rate doesn't really do me much good. But, hey ... any writer in the RPG industry knows how rare it is for a publisher to stiff their freelancers, right?

And, much like how people should be approaching the idea of a pay rate, none of the above are absolutes. They have value sometimes, but sometimes they don't. Each and every job should be approached from the perspective of a cost-benefit for that particular moment in time. If that's not what you're doing -- if you're operating purely under the belief that there's nothing to it but deciding on your minimum pay rate and nothing else -- well, you don't actually know what it means to be a professional writer. You just happen to be a writer who knows enough to sometimes get paid for one's writing.

And my final qualifier on all of the above: I am currently working full-time as both a small press publisher in the RPG industry and as a freelance writer in other, more lucrative fields. Misfit Studios, which operates primarily on a digital product model, hasn't used freelance writers in about 7 or 8 years (EDIT: well, until recently -- I currently have a job where I'm paying a flat fee of $5 per creature to convert a OGL 3.5 creature to M&M3e stats, so no pay per word there), but when we did it was at about $0.01/word, negotiable. (Because, as a publisher, I also recognize that considering a pay rate to be an absolute isn't realistic to how a project requiring freelancers functions within the RPG market.) Since then, instead of taking on freelancers, all writers other than myself have been on a royalty basis or as a collaborative project. So, I'm not just talking out of my ass without perspective from both sides, and because I haven't actually hired on any freelance writers for so long, I'm not here "having a tantrum" under the convenient excuse that I'm defending my company's "exploitive" payment policies.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Completely and utterly disagree. You're paying less than the work is worth; that's exploitive, AFAIAC. (snip)

What is the work worth?

It's worth what someone will pay for it.

RPG products have no inherent value. Their only value is what someone will pay for them and clearly the market is so small and so crowded that people are not prepared to pay a lot.

That may sound harsh but that's the reality of this hobby.