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.

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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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[CardinalXimenes]

I'm happy to meet potential writers and artists in person, and work in person on the product until it's ready. But, considering I have the equipment to do everything RIGHT NOW, how else but a Kickstarter or a % afterwards, can someone who isn't already rich get going?

Do some zero-overhead products, collect the profit on them, and roll it over into your next project. I do not recommend Kickstarters to anybody unless they have a complete grip on their project workflow and a couple prior projects published already. I do not recommend royalty-sharing to anybody, either, because that doesn't necessarily guarantee that the freelancers are going to get paid an amount which is minimally adequate to them. I think a publisher really does need to have cash in hand before they hire freelancers, and they get that cash in hand with low-overhead startup projects.

Don't worry about not having a big back catalog yet. In conventional publishing, your book has maybe a month on the shelf before it gets tossed. With modern POD, your back catalog is immortal, and will always get about the same amount of retail exposure regardless of how long it's been out. So long as you don't stop producing, every new product you make slowly stacks up- and since you're making all of it, you can be sure that it all fits together gracefully. If you want to make significant money at this, you're going to have to commit to at least two or three years of steady, unflagging output before you have a catalog worth mentioning, but once you have it, the effects add up with each new release.

The sad truth is that you won't have any profits worth sharing for at least a year of ferocious effort. Unless and until you can show potential freelancers how each of your new products of type X averages $5K sales over the first 12 months, they've got no reason to take a flyer on collaborating for royalty shares. After you work cheap, roll the money into the business, and develop a brand that customers recognize and want, then it's something to consider- but even then, I am very much more in favor of plain old-fashioned fee for service.

As for Wrath of the Frost Queen, it looks like a very creditable first effort, but where's your POD version? You need a paper option up there- there's a non-trivial number of buyers who don't want PDF, and you can get better margins on paper products. If I were you, I'd drop the PDF to $8.99 to get it comfortably below the $10 mental break point many buyers have and then do a $14.99 POD with bundled free PDF. A lot of buyers get twitchy about spending more than $9.99 on non-full-game PDFs, and $9 is something of a sweet spot for pricing in terms of volume and per-item profit.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

That's all? That surprises me.

I just want to say I appreciate all the freelance writers, self-publishers, and essentially volunteers that dedicate their time and hard work to our shared hobby. In my opinion, it keeps the games alive. So thank you.

Pay what you want still tends to get more people paying nothing than something, is my experience. But you'll also get the people who download it for free and then come back and pay for it to show they liked it.

 

[Starfox]

Pay what you want still tends to get more people paying nothing than something, is my experience. But you'll also get the people who download it for free and then come back and pay for it to show they liked it.

Speaking only for myself here. Having a pay-what-you want title makes me reluctant to download unless I truly want it. Sometimes, I may download and not pay, seeing it as a sampler. I may have returned to pay on occasion, but not often; its easy to forget, and tbh most such downloads end up forgotten deep in some folder. But yeah, it is a hope. And if the work is stellar and used alot, it would prompt me to go back and pay.

A problem with many free and pay-what-you-want items is that they are lacklustre. If you see these products as marketing materials, you should make them as good as you can, even if they are short. After all, a good free product may convince byers your paid product is worth the cost.

 

[Nellisir]

I'm happy to meet potential writers and artists in person, and work in person on the product until it's ready. But, considering I have the equipment to do everything RIGHT NOW, how else but a Kickstarter or a % afterwards, can someone who isn't already rich get going?

The way it's always been done. Write a few products and save the profit. Build up a fund, use that to pay someone. Hopefully profits on that product are worth the expense. Grow your business, don't try to vault straight up.

 

[Nellisir]

A problem with many free and pay-what-you-want items is that they are lacklustre. If you see these products as marketing materials, you should make them as good as you can, even if they are short. After all, a good free product may convince byers your paid product is worth the cost.

That is something that bothers me, and (three years ago, when I started The Basic Illusionist) a trend I wanted to buck. Personally, I'll put TBI up against almost* any other OSR product for layout and production, and that's using copyright-free images and Word. I hate crappy free products. There's really no excuse.

I should really do a POD version.

*I say almost because there are a few people out there doing fabulous work, and I'll happily concede to them.

 

[Ricochet]

Interesting article, and a good discussion for the most part. I've written fiction novels that have been published through a traditional publisher, and I must say that the rates I'm seeing here are quite low compared to even my entry-level efforts as a novelist on a words-divided-by-pay calculation. However, I did a translation of a novel too at one point, which comes closer to these rates once you add editing time etc. into the calculation.

I always thought the "payment per word" model was mostly a myth though, which is the most surprising part of all this for me. We always wondered why American-authored textbooks in schools/universities were so long and wordy, and this might just explain that (write something in some obscure field of expertise in which the editor doesn't know what is trivial and what is necessary ;-)).

 

[Zak S]

I wonder if the OSR community is very different than the Pathfinder community. Zak S could also join this thread and talk about Red & Pleasant Land, but that wouldn't be the norm for most writers or publishers.

I think the OSR community is exceptionally friendly to self-publishers because it has such low minimum standards for production quality.

That may well be, but Red & Pleasant Land is definitely not one of those products.

James spent more money putting out that book than my artbook publishers spent putting out my art books--and it paid off.

I made off RPL in a month to pay rent in downtown LA for like two years. The trick?

Make sure the design is something you'd put face to face with anything in the industry.
Make sure the writing is something you'd put face to face with anything in the industry.
Make sure the art is something you'd put face to face with anything in the industry.
Make sure the graphic design is something you'd put face to face with anything in the industry.
Make sure you can defend every single decision (and with something better than "Well that's what we could afford" or "Well that's what people usually do").
And, having people who are widely despised attacking you, your girlfriend and your book helps, too.

 

[lynnfredricks]

Interesting article, and a good discussion for the most part. I've written fiction novels that have been published through a traditional publisher, and I must say that the rates I'm seeing here are quite low compared to even my entry-level efforts as a novelist on a words-divided-by-pay calculation. However, I did a translation of a novel too at one point, which comes closer to these rates once you add editing time etc. into the calculation.

What you can make as a translator also depends on the language, field and experience of the translator. Also, depending on what the type of editing is, you can charge more for that. Every translator should have their work eyeballed for accuracy; its rare that a direct translation is suitable for anything outside of technical documentation.

At one time, I was involved in console games, and had a team that translated Japanese -> English (back in the SNES, Genessis, PC Engine, Jaguar days). An accurate translation was just a part of it, because the end text had to either capture the original flavor and style of the game OR, if that original flavor was just too alien for the target market, it had to be "creatively edited" too.

 

[CardinalXimenes]

That may well be, but Red & Pleasant Land is definitely not one of those products.

Undoubtedly so. I bought paper for R&PL, and I only buy a handful of paper RPG products in a year- the physical artifact was worth having.

Make sure the design is something you'd put face to face with anything in the industry.
Make sure the writing is something you'd put face to face with anything in the industry.
Make sure the art is something you'd put face to face with anything in the industry.
Make sure the graphic design is something you'd put face to face with anything in the industry.
Make sure you can defend every single decision (and with something better than "Well that's what we could afford" or "Well that's what people usually do").
And, having people who are widely despised attacking you, your girlfriend and your book helps, too.

This basically boils down to "make something noticeably better in all possible ways than the standard market output", and it's undeniably good advice. Eventually, every publisher wants to get there and stay there in a consistent way. But you and James Raggi have had years of intense effort to develop and focus your abilities, and this particular partnership involved the business and publishing nous of Raggi and your own writing and artistic skills. The average self-pub RPG creator has nowhere near that kind of skill reserve to call on.

They have none of those skills yet. Some of them can get those things, and some of them have those things just waiting in abeyance for the opportunity to show them, and some of them have things they've polished in other parts of their lives that they can repurpose with minimal fuss. But for the average apprentice RPG publisher, just getting out a respectable-looking print product with modestly useful content and a few good ideas between the covers is a real challenge.

Shooting for sublimity is what every self-respecting publisher wants to do, but my concern is for novices who try to buy excellence. They think they need to spend a lot of money patching over their own limited skills- buying a lot of art, a lot of writing, a lot of layout support, a lot of everything, really, because they've got a grand vision and they know that if they just make their product sufficiently awesome that it's bound to sell well. They're like kids playing in their father's workshop, hammering stuff together and waving around tools they don't exactly recognize. And like such kids, they've got a tendency to get hurt when their shambolic contraption doesn't quite come out the way they'd hoped. And then they get bitter, and write off self-pub as a horrible idea because they invested too much before they had sufficient skill to control their creation.

Good craftsmen start simple. You learn how to cut a board or how to hammer a nail or how to sand a corner. You learn how to lay out a simple two-column page of text, how to set to a grid, how to compose a unified spread. Maybe you dream of 300-page full-color artbook-games full of luminous prose, but you start with an orc with a pie. Maybe you don't even bother to publish your orc with a pie, but you need to make him, because you need to know how to compose and key a bog-standard dungeon in a way that's accessible and efficient in use. And most of all, you take each step in such a way that you can support your own creative process, that you're not relying on blithe hope to make things work.

Then, someday, after years of ferocious effort and study, you'll be ready to make that 300-page artbook. You'll know which artists to tap, which designers you need to help you, which parts of it you can do and which parts you can't. You'll know exactly how it should be put together and you'll know that even in the worst case you're going to come out in the black because you've built up a following that can be relied on for a minimal number of sales. You'll have mastered your tools, and that will make your money something rather more than an expensive way to not learn something. Then you can make something like R&PL, or Vornheim, or DCC, or any one of the other remarkable physical artifacts that've earned just praise.

 

[Nellisir]

That may well be, but Red & Pleasant Land is definitely not one of those products.
James spent more money putting out that book than my artbook publishers spent putting out my art books--and it paid off.

Yeah, great. Because I need more reasons to want this. :/
Someday I too shall have this thing called money.