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Self Publishing: What's An Artist Worth?
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<blockquote data-quote="araquael" data-source="post: 7695287" data-attributes="member: 25636"><p>Well, this thread finally made me get around to resetting my enWorld password! Huzzah!</p><p></p><p>As someone who has written professionally, floats around the dregs of the film industry and lives with and around full time artists, let me tell you: making art is work.</p><p></p><p>Not only is it work, it costs money to do. </p><p></p><p>Of course you can volunteer, but you don't do yourself much good. You cannot keep working for free in the hope that one day the grand spotlight of internet adoration will shine on you. You can do it a bit. But you won't be able to do it a lot. The best exposure is that gotten from a series of paid gigs. For several reasons, not least of which a paid gig will be part of a paid product with production values and editing and so on - in other words a product people will appreciate and remember. A paid gig, even a not-so-well paying one, comes with the wonderful feeling of maybe going out for coffee or dinner with friends with the proceeds with you in the buzzed-up knowledge that you got paid for your talent. Means you'll keep doing it, even as you deal with editorial notes, change requests and whatnot. Makes it easier to have a professional portfolio of stuff which will have acquired a reputation. </p><p></p><p>For artists, its a deal more important. Writing is reasonably cheap. Doing art costs. It means paying for things like a desk to work on, which is only good for doing art on, getting a lightbox, getting paints, getting some editing software, getting a tablet thingie to draw on. All of those things tend to degrade over time, so they all are going to eventually need replacing. And that's not even counting other costs having an art career might involve. Most of the full time artists I know make their money from big gallery shows - but the night they are wining and dining at the opening or the vernissage, they are usually thousands of dollars/pounds/whatever in the red. The big show had fees, their application fees and agency fees and and and and... Point being, art costs to do. Most artists are often doing a variety of different things to subsidise the art. Sculptors might work as 3d animators to pay the bills part of the year, or save up for application fees, or take smaller gigs to subsidise the big gigs. Remember too, that life gets mysteriously more expensive as you get older.</p><p></p><p>But what has that got to do with someone who just wants to draw some orcs and sexy elves? Well its fun doing it, and you can put it up on deviant art and people can like it. But soon as someone says "I need you to draw the orc with a battleaxe, not the spear you have been using" it becomes work. It's already work, but now its adjusting your talent, skill and energy for someone else. Work. </p><p></p><p>I know we're all meant to be part of exciting start up companies and doing stupid amounts of work for no reward in case there's a sudden buyout by Facebook, at which point we all become zillionaires, but the reality is, most people will work a job, and expect to be paid by the hour or a salary commensurate with the time they put it. It might be what you trained for, you may believe in what you are doing, but you're still figuratively drawing those battleaxes. Now imagine you're working one of those normal jobs and you've been waiting all week for Saturday to roll around. You're going to watch netflix, you're going to have coffee with a friend, maybe play something from Steam. Now imagine your boss calls you at 2pm to tell you there's been a rush order and everyone needs to come in. You'd kinda want to be paid. You'd be less than thrilled if you got in on that saturday and discover that since a few odd souls volunteered to come in and work for free, that you were now expected to work for free too.</p><p></p><p>It's work. You need to be paid. The problem is, the entire internet and modern media runs on content, which people are making all sorts of money off, and everyone's expected to generate it for free. Even your buddy's dog pictures on facebook is content being monetised by facebook. Hell your brother's spat with his ex is monetised content. Some people's dog videos and internet spats, done for free, are so effective that they get gigs doing branded content online and become stars with millions of youtube hits. Turns out, they aren't being paid either. But imagine the internet without them all.</p><p></p><p>Sure, everyone's creative, but only a smaller subset of people can turn that personal creativity and hobby into something marketable. If you have that knack, you owe it to yourself.</p><p></p><p>tl;dr - making stuff is work. Don't volunteer for something someone is making money off of (remember, the DM Guild is a way for WOTC to strengthen its brand value - it's cheap content to value add to the sold D+D products). The world expects you to work for free, because you are "creative." It's fulfilling. Until you find yourself scratching out that beautiful spear you just drew for a battleaxe that needs to be just so.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="araquael, post: 7695287, member: 25636"] Well, this thread finally made me get around to resetting my enWorld password! Huzzah! As someone who has written professionally, floats around the dregs of the film industry and lives with and around full time artists, let me tell you: making art is work. Not only is it work, it costs money to do. Of course you can volunteer, but you don't do yourself much good. You cannot keep working for free in the hope that one day the grand spotlight of internet adoration will shine on you. You can do it a bit. But you won't be able to do it a lot. The best exposure is that gotten from a series of paid gigs. For several reasons, not least of which a paid gig will be part of a paid product with production values and editing and so on - in other words a product people will appreciate and remember. A paid gig, even a not-so-well paying one, comes with the wonderful feeling of maybe going out for coffee or dinner with friends with the proceeds with you in the buzzed-up knowledge that you got paid for your talent. Means you'll keep doing it, even as you deal with editorial notes, change requests and whatnot. Makes it easier to have a professional portfolio of stuff which will have acquired a reputation. For artists, its a deal more important. Writing is reasonably cheap. Doing art costs. It means paying for things like a desk to work on, which is only good for doing art on, getting a lightbox, getting paints, getting some editing software, getting a tablet thingie to draw on. All of those things tend to degrade over time, so they all are going to eventually need replacing. And that's not even counting other costs having an art career might involve. Most of the full time artists I know make their money from big gallery shows - but the night they are wining and dining at the opening or the vernissage, they are usually thousands of dollars/pounds/whatever in the red. The big show had fees, their application fees and agency fees and and and and... Point being, art costs to do. Most artists are often doing a variety of different things to subsidise the art. Sculptors might work as 3d animators to pay the bills part of the year, or save up for application fees, or take smaller gigs to subsidise the big gigs. Remember too, that life gets mysteriously more expensive as you get older. But what has that got to do with someone who just wants to draw some orcs and sexy elves? Well its fun doing it, and you can put it up on deviant art and people can like it. But soon as someone says "I need you to draw the orc with a battleaxe, not the spear you have been using" it becomes work. It's already work, but now its adjusting your talent, skill and energy for someone else. Work. I know we're all meant to be part of exciting start up companies and doing stupid amounts of work for no reward in case there's a sudden buyout by Facebook, at which point we all become zillionaires, but the reality is, most people will work a job, and expect to be paid by the hour or a salary commensurate with the time they put it. It might be what you trained for, you may believe in what you are doing, but you're still figuratively drawing those battleaxes. Now imagine you're working one of those normal jobs and you've been waiting all week for Saturday to roll around. You're going to watch netflix, you're going to have coffee with a friend, maybe play something from Steam. Now imagine your boss calls you at 2pm to tell you there's been a rush order and everyone needs to come in. You'd kinda want to be paid. You'd be less than thrilled if you got in on that saturday and discover that since a few odd souls volunteered to come in and work for free, that you were now expected to work for free too. It's work. You need to be paid. The problem is, the entire internet and modern media runs on content, which people are making all sorts of money off, and everyone's expected to generate it for free. Even your buddy's dog pictures on facebook is content being monetised by facebook. Hell your brother's spat with his ex is monetised content. Some people's dog videos and internet spats, done for free, are so effective that they get gigs doing branded content online and become stars with millions of youtube hits. Turns out, they aren't being paid either. But imagine the internet without them all. Sure, everyone's creative, but only a smaller subset of people can turn that personal creativity and hobby into something marketable. If you have that knack, you owe it to yourself. tl;dr - making stuff is work. Don't volunteer for something someone is making money off of (remember, the DM Guild is a way for WOTC to strengthen its brand value - it's cheap content to value add to the sold D+D products). The world expects you to work for free, because you are "creative." It's fulfilling. Until you find yourself scratching out that beautiful spear you just drew for a battleaxe that needs to be just so. [/QUOTE]
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