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What's a Freelance RPG Writer Worth?
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<blockquote data-quote="Dioltach" data-source="post: 7658945" data-attributes="member: 21843"><p>Frankly, I'm shocked. These aren't rates that will allow anyone to make a decent living, even if you can produce 2000 words of publication-ready material <em>every single day of your working week</em>. I'm not a writer, but I'm a full-time freelance translator, and have been for more than 12 years. I find it hard to produce more than 2500-3000 words of translation (i.e. someone else's writing, not even my own original content) on a daily basis, and even that puts me at the upper end of the production scale for professional translators. And as a freelancer your income needs to cover time that you're not productive -- holidays, sick time, no work. (For the record, my rates range between EUR 0.12 if I work for agencies, to EUR 0.15/0.16 for small one-person businesses, to EUR 0.19 for large companies such as banks and larger law firms. Editing is EUR 0.03-0.04 -- which is significantly lower than the EUR 85-95/hour that many other editors charge. With the economy being what it is, there's been a lot of pressure on translation and editing rates in recent years, but I don't even reply to job offers that pay less than EUR 0.10.)</p><p></p><p>What are the reasons for these low rates? Is it a simple matter of supply and demand? Can the market not support higher rates? Are the established writers/designers being paid significantly more than newcomers? Are the publishers taking what they feel is a "fair" cut, at the expense of the writers?</p><p></p><p>The way things are now, talented fledging writers are <em>not</em> being encouraged to dedicate their time and effort to producing content. Is there anything preventing newcomers from self-publishing or forming a publishing cooperative? Because publishers might say that writers need to prove their worth, but it works the other way too: without writers publishers have nothing to publish.</p><p></p><p>These are just the thoughts of an outsider. Like I said, I'm not a game writer, but I know what it is to earn a living as a freelancer, and <em>none</em> of the rates listed above would offer a viable source of income.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dioltach, post: 7658945, member: 21843"] Frankly, I'm shocked. These aren't rates that will allow anyone to make a decent living, even if you can produce 2000 words of publication-ready material [I]every single day of your working week[/I]. I'm not a writer, but I'm a full-time freelance translator, and have been for more than 12 years. I find it hard to produce more than 2500-3000 words of translation (i.e. someone else's writing, not even my own original content) on a daily basis, and even that puts me at the upper end of the production scale for professional translators. And as a freelancer your income needs to cover time that you're not productive -- holidays, sick time, no work. (For the record, my rates range between EUR 0.12 if I work for agencies, to EUR 0.15/0.16 for small one-person businesses, to EUR 0.19 for large companies such as banks and larger law firms. Editing is EUR 0.03-0.04 -- which is significantly lower than the EUR 85-95/hour that many other editors charge. With the economy being what it is, there's been a lot of pressure on translation and editing rates in recent years, but I don't even reply to job offers that pay less than EUR 0.10.) What are the reasons for these low rates? Is it a simple matter of supply and demand? Can the market not support higher rates? Are the established writers/designers being paid significantly more than newcomers? Are the publishers taking what they feel is a "fair" cut, at the expense of the writers? The way things are now, talented fledging writers are [I]not[/I] being encouraged to dedicate their time and effort to producing content. Is there anything preventing newcomers from self-publishing or forming a publishing cooperative? Because publishers might say that writers need to prove their worth, but it works the other way too: without writers publishers have nothing to publish. These are just the thoughts of an outsider. Like I said, I'm not a game writer, but I know what it is to earn a living as a freelancer, and [I]none[/I] of the rates listed above would offer a viable source of income. [/QUOTE]
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