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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orcus" data-source="post: 237279" data-attributes="member: 1254">Mike and Erik, right on.When Mike says he will write 1million words, here is a guage for you: we use a rule of thumb of 750 words to a printed page. So that is over 1000 printed pages of work--not pages of manuscript, printed work! That is an INSANE amount of work for a year for a freelancer.As for payment, it will be years before the TOTAL I have paid freelancers adds up to 40,000.There is NO good business justification for not submittion short of the person who has real conflicts over intellectual property, so enough with the "I wont sell it because I could make more money" becuase NO YOU CAN'T.There is a reason for the big payday. Its called BAIT.Our cheesy worlds (and I mean mine too) are not worth $120,000. PERIOD. No matter how good they are. Unpublished authors shouldnt even get to sneeze at that kind of money for a setting bible (not a whole world, just a friggin setting bible!!!). So why did WotC offer that kind of jack? To get the Monte Cooks and Sean Reynolds' and Tracy Hickman's of the world to submit stuff. Thats why. And guess what, $120,000 is still a good payday from THEM for a 100 page setting bible.As for my take on this "my conscience wouldnt let me" or "I didnt want to sell my soul" is that it is just what I call "gamer purity." Gamers just want to be more "pure" than the next guy, and thus somehow better in their minds. Like "pure roleplayers", some people are just "too pure" to send in their game worlds. If you dont want to do a submission for your own personal reasons, fine. Thats your choice. But posting about it is just self aggrandizement. Which also seems to go hand in hand with purity for some reason. People who feel they are so pure seem also to be compelled to tell everyone else about it. Strange.Back to freelancers. Mike is right. It is near impossible to get on time stuff from freelancers. Mike is one over the VERY VERY tiny group of people who are on time. And as for his point about delayed payments, he is right on. Publishers have to get paid by distributors (who are waiting for others sometimes) and that is done quarterly, so you might not get your check as a freelancer (if part of the payment is after release) until over 3 months after release becasue the company might not have the money to pay until that time. So the payment lag is another problem for freelancers.As for the guy who has 95% of publishing figured out I would love to get a lesson from him. I own a publishing company and have done pretty well with it and I dont have 95% of it figured out. Not by a long shot. So if there is a guy who hasnt published jack who knows 95% he needs to get on the lecture circuit right away!Clark</blockquote>

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