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What's a Freelance RPG Writer Worth?
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<blockquote data-quote="Mike Myler" data-source="post: 7658951" data-attributes="member: 6726030"><p>For (more than) my first year as a freelance game designer I was producing an average of 8,000+ words a day to make my bills (and even then, was dipping into my savings habitually).</p><p></p><p>This is not something I recommend to anyone. </p><p></p><p>Virtually all of my time was spent writing, revising, and designing game content (typically 14 hours a day). It was an enormous risk to approach a career like this because the abhorrent rates in the industry are what they are, but fortunately I'm established <em>N.O.W.</em> (get it? ;D) and it's not nearly as rough any more. </p><p></p><p>That's for several reasons (90+ hour work weeks, good luck, working for the right people, being in the right places, and the support of milady and my folks) but predominantly because I <em>really</em> lucked out and got into a hardcover (<em>Tome of Decay</em> for <em>Black Crusade</em> by Fantasy Flight Games) very early on because of an incredibly fortunate and impromptu run-in with a developer at (my first) GenCon. </p><p>Otherwise the general turnaround time for publishers would have put me in the proverbial dirt months ago (one royalty pay out has been expected for a year, and my copy—turned over in 2013—only reached their development stage the other week).</p><p></p><p>Excellent article, good sir—this absolutely qualifies as a must-read for anyone else trying to make a go at game design as a career.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mike Myler, post: 7658951, member: 6726030"] For (more than) my first year as a freelance game designer I was producing an average of 8,000+ words a day to make my bills (and even then, was dipping into my savings habitually). This is not something I recommend to anyone. Virtually all of my time was spent writing, revising, and designing game content (typically 14 hours a day). It was an enormous risk to approach a career like this because the abhorrent rates in the industry are what they are, but fortunately I'm established [I]N.O.W.[/I] (get it? ;D) and it's not nearly as rough any more. That's for several reasons (90+ hour work weeks, good luck, working for the right people, being in the right places, and the support of milady and my folks) but predominantly because I [I]really[/I] lucked out and got into a hardcover ([I]Tome of Decay[/I] for [I]Black Crusade[/I] by Fantasy Flight Games) very early on because of an incredibly fortunate and impromptu run-in with a developer at (my first) GenCon. Otherwise the general turnaround time for publishers would have put me in the proverbial dirt months ago (one royalty pay out has been expected for a year, and my copy—turned over in 2013—only reached their development stage the other week). Excellent article, good sir—this absolutely qualifies as a must-read for anyone else trying to make a go at game design as a career. [/QUOTE]
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