If you’re anything like me, you take work with you to bed and it leads to restless nights.
“I need to add that link to my sidebar,” “I never wrote that client back,” “I’ll never finish this page in time for my flight,” and, “If I just worked harder, accomplished more like so-and-so, my comic would have taken off by now.”
Understandably, it’s hard to sleep with, “It’s my own fault my career sucks” in bed with you.
If only we could work less and finish more. But if we don’t do the work, who will? Most of us run a-one man-show and if we stop to catch our breath, it will all fall apart.
…Right?
Beware Of The Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing:
Some opportunities are genuinely too wonderful to refuse.
But most opportunities are more ambiguous. The pay is great, but it will take us further from our goals. Or the project is fantastic, but the client doesn’t want to pay. Sometimes it’s downright gray: the job is in our wheelhouse, offering a decent rate but we just aren’t passionate about it.
We get fevered thinking that every opportunity might be the one to unlock the door to our dreams: financial freedom, creative freedom or the freedom that comes from notoriety.
Sadly, many “opportunities” we take actually lead to stress and creative frustration instead.
Yet the promise of “what if” is so irresistible that we wind up saying yes because we’re afraid of missing out.
Companies prey on artists, promising things like “exposure” in lieu of a respectable paycheck. But “having a portfolio piece” or “being published” doesn’t mean much if you hated the project and the work isn’t good. So if you were underpaid and wind up not wanting to use the piece in your own portfolio, what have you gotten out of it besides another chip on your shoulder?
-Tweet This Quote
Risk Vs. Reward:
Here is a hypothetical project that I’ve seen a hundred times:
Someone offers $100 for cover art. They’re a budding publisher that you’ve never heard of… and neither has anyone else. They promise that they are up and coming and wave the elusive “publishing credit” carrot in front of you.
If the job takes two work days—16 hours—to do full, colored art, you just made $6.25 an hour.
Now tack on revisions—half a day’s worth?— and you’re down to $5 an hour.
You just spent half a work week on a project that brought in less money than you could make at a drive-thru window.
There are better ways to spend our time.
The above example was a relatively small time sink, but when a big project comes your way, it can be far more dangerous.
Tempting freelance gigs steal time from your personal projects. But are they worth it?
Someone comes to you with an exciting number for a 100 page graphic novel: $5,000!
Lets say you can finish a page a day, though few of us can. I’ll make it a 10 hour day just to be more realistic.
- 10 hours per page x 100 pages = 1,000 hours.
- Working five days a week, this is five months full-time.
You’ve just made another $5 an hour as you work on this soul-sucking project that leaves little time for much else.
In the end, we’re left with nothing but regret.
What if you had put that time into your own project? Even working at half the speed, you could finish your own book in ten months.
The sad reality is that projects like this get in the way of real opportunities.
You can’t say yes to a real opportunity if you’re neck deep in the middle of an un-inspiring “wolf opportunity.”
Let Your Yes Be Yes:
Ask these questions before saying ‘yes’ to a job:
- Does this publisher/client truly have the means to give me the exposure they are promising?
- Am I excited about the project? Is it something I want to work on?
- WILL this take me closer to my ultimate goal or MIGHT it?
- Do I have the time available that I estimate this project will take?
- Is the wage fair and not insulting?
Answering “no” to any of these is a red flag, and you should really weight the cost before taking the project on.
Answering “no” to all of them is just crazy.
Phone a Friend:
I had an opportunity recently that promised me exposure to an audience I want to reach. The client regretted that he could not pay me, but gave me readership statistics for his publication to woo me into a “yes.” He thought it would be “mutually beneficial.”
I went back and forth on the opportunity.
Time wise, it was a relatively small project. But I have a lot of commitments on my plate, and adding another always makes me wary. But the promised exposure kept tickling the back of my mind. My husband didn’t like the idea so I turned to a mentor for advice.
He told me he thought it was a bad idea. The most important thing on my resumé is The Dreamer (my comic series) and if this other project would lessen the quality or regularity of The Dreamer it is an easy no.
He told me he didn’t think the publication was as prestigious as the editor had suggested. It sounded like a distraction of a project and an insult of a paycheck.
He wrote, “it is always better to do a few things really well than lots of things poorly.”
His advice as a physician against over-committing is powerful, so I’ll share it with you verbatim:
“When your spouse balks, pay attention. …opportunities are manifold; the love of one’s life a rare treasure. Attending the death bed, I have never heard patients regret the speaking engagement they declined. But I have heard relationship regrets aplenty, related at a time when there is no redress. Life is not a dress rehearsal, as one of the self-help gurus has declared.”
The truth is that by saying no to that “opportunity” I left time open for something else to come my way.
And something else did: a paid opportunity, to the same dream-target audience, in a much more prestigious publication.
Don’t panic and think every opportunity is your last. Often times no job is better than a crappy one because it leaves the door open for something better to come along.
{ 60 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a photographer, but your story rang true with me too. There are always clients offering “exposure” and no pay for huge jobs. I was just starting out and this company offered me a job taking photos for their website. I was naive and didn’t even bother with signing a contract immediately. I did the first two shoots for around $100 each, even though each shoot took 2 hours and the post processing took 10 hours each maybe. Long story short, she paid me but ended up stealing all my images under some law I didn’t understand. Luckily it was early on in my career, so I learnt that your pay rate should always cover your time, and to sign a contract! And know your copyright laws. So that’s my bad work experience. Unfortunately it happens all the time to newcomers.
If your fee doesn’t make the client yelp a bit, it’s too low. Nice article, very good advice.
how do you determine how much you should be pai for a job? also how do you get jobs when you have little to stand on? art is work but its also like craft you get better as you do it and just because you need money doesn’t mean your skill is up to parr with other professionals what if shady people are the only ones welling to pay you for what you can do ..?
Determining your rates is always a difficult question. There’s no great answer to it aside from asking and looking around to get an idea of what professionals in the field charge. Then you have to make a very frank skill assessment of your own work relative to theirs, and understand that even when you are charging reasonable rates there is every chance people still won’t be willing to pay. And don’t take artists at the top of their game (say Jim Lee or something) as your baseline. He’s a 20+ year veteran. Look at artists that are mid level to early in their careers for fair pricing.
For me there’s a sliding scale on what I charge for most things, and it depends on a number of factors, budget of my client, length/difficulty of project, number of revisions, how much I like working with that client (I give the “I love you, man” discount if a client is particularly good to me) and so on. There’s an addage about commercial art, it can be only two of three things at a time, really cheap, really fast, and really good. Keep that in mind while you price and you’re more likely to at least feel like you’re getting paid what the work is worth, even if what you are being paid isn’t necessarily a pro rate just yet.
One thing that you’re going to have to square yourself with is that moving from making no money on art to living off it is often (read, almost always) a long process. I will say, from the first local convention I went to it was somewhere between 3-4 years before I was breaking even on my table costs, and probably another year before I was making profit. Nowadays I’m creeping toward being able to break even at out of state shows, but I’m not quite there yet. There is a principle to both convention sales and client projects that if you want to make money, you’re going to be doing a lot of work up front to present yourself as a professional. I have for brief periods (a year here or there) been totally freelance and subsisted off my art, but again, it’s a process, and there will be times that are more lean. Particularly if you freelance, money is feast or famine, and you’ll need to become an astute accountant. I once managed to stretch the money from a six month gig to last me another 6 months past when I finished. It’s an important skill to cultivate, because that was when the economy bombed and all the local gigs dried up completely.
Additionally, other than practice and getting better, you simply won’t get decent art jobs until you have a decent portfolio. You won’t get decent convention sales until you have a decent convention setup. There’s no shortcut to this, if you don’t have much art to trade upon, you’re going to have to make more, likely for very cheap or free, before you can show a body of work that signifies you are an artist worth paying. A quality body of work tends to find its audience and clients, but if you only have two or three pieces that isn’t a body of work.
As for your last question, DO NOT DEAL WITH SHADY PEOPLE. I put this in caps because it will save you a tremendous amount of heartache and anxiety. If you get ashady vibe from a client, pass. End of story. One of my stduio mates ignored his instincts and got taken for nearly 10k of free design and illustration. It crushed him financially and he’s only now working out of it, doing so with menial, mind numbing work for a company he hates. If you have to have a day job, do that and build your art up in the evenings. A day job, as distasteful as they are, is usually a steady paycheck, and there are far more ways to protect yourself from getting stiffed if you are a standard worker than if you are a freelance artist.
I passed on an “opportunity” this past fall that would’ve put me in this position. I got an offer to work on a graphic novel by a writer who I greatly respect. Two major red flags: 1) the script work he was showing me was VERY weak compared to his other work and 2) he had no means to pay me. I regret circumstances that I couldn’t make things work with this writer, but a bad deal is a bad deal. I ended up turning down the project to work on a personal project that’s doing way more for me than this graphic novel ever could have. It’s true. No job is better than a crappy one.
Not all unpaid collaborations are bad. If writing isn’t your thing, teaming up may make sense in order to produce good work and hone your craft. We shouldn’t wait until someone is offering $200 a page before we put pencil to paper.
I’ve done the portfolio review thing for a number of years. It’s like I was asking someone’s permission to make comics, when finally I realized I didn’t need anyone’s permission and just got started making them. I don’t get paid to make them, yet, and I’m fine with that at this stage.
There are plenty of writers out there trying to break in too. If I like the writer and he or she isn’t getting paid, I’m okay with not getting paid. I accept this work, not because I think it will bring me exposure, but because I like the people I’m working with and find that I grow artistically when I have to consider someone else’s ideas. We’re all trying to learn how to do this and sometimes it’s not a bad thing to learn together. Exposure might not get you that dream job in comics, but honing one’s skills is an ongoing endeavor that could lead to good things. Honing one’s skills is, in fact, required to be a professional. Paid or not, we should all be working on SOMETHING. It’s just a question of what.
If, like with “The Dreamer,” you can do it all yourself, great. But if you need a collaborator, proposals from writers are worth considering if you think it’s a chance to learn and grow artistically.
Indeed.
In those cases the project truly become a team effort, with both writer and artist on the ground floor.
I would simply implore writers in those situations to honor the amount of time the artist will be putting in and be willing to share the big picture creative rights accordingly.
An artist (or writer) working without pay means they are putting their heart into the project, not just doing the work. With respect to that, their efforts should be considered just as integral to the conceptualization of the whole property as the other party’s.
If it really is a team effort, yes. But I’ve seen enough projects die because the artist lost ionterest in that unpaid job half-way through or got a better offer. Getting paid also works as an incentive to keep going.
It really depends. On a lot of levels.
A while ago, I wrote a couple of scripts as a proof-of-concept type thing. I wanted to pass them to artists because I knew I’d never find the time to draw them myself, but I never did because I could neither pay an artist nor promise exposure they couldn’t get themselves. (Being an artist myself, the only way for me to outsource the artwork without becoming an unpleasant control freak would have been to work with somebody who could do something I couldn’t, and those artists can easily find their own audiences.) So the stuff rotted in my drawer until one artist I’d have loved to work with got cross with me for not proposing the script to him. By the time I could have presented it to him, though, he was already committed to some other big project.
So I guess there’s that, too.
Contracts help there.
I would have to admit to faltering out of productivity on a few projects. Not anything really long-term, but sometimes another project comes along that can compensate more practically and respectfully, more consistently, and without intending to the artist can just get swept away.
Contracts still don’t guarantee anything, but they can set both parties up with acceptable opt-out scenarios, or, if nothing else, a certain time frame for how long either party is obligated to the other.
I wish I could have seen through every project I’ve taken on, but sometimes the cards just aren’t there. And sometimes it’s the hope that eventually you’ll be able to work it in that hurts the productivity too—if it’s something you really want to work on but have trouble making the time for it due to other priority projects, sometimes you just need to cut the losses and hand the reins back to the other party. I myself need to get better at identifying those predicaments way earlier than I do.
It’s definitely easy to get over-committed fast as an artist. There are a lot of great people out there I’d like to collaborate with, but there are only so many hours in the day.
It’s never easy assessing whether a certain project will be worth it beforehand and you will have good and bad experiences no matter what but you are so right Lora to say “Often times no job is better than a crappy one because it leaves the door open for something better to come along.”
A number of years ago I was in a situation where I decided to start freelancing and while I was getting business going I took on a job as an IT support person in a non-profit company. I figured it gave the flexibility to work freelance part-time while giving me the opportunity to learn more about computers and the web. The IT knowledge I was gaining with my day job helped me in many ways as I was self-training to specialize in web design.
I was spending more time doing IT support than design work but besides the bills needing paying, I also knew it was useful knowledge. I did take on a number of projects for friends who were starting their own businesses and while my rates for them were sometimes lower, I still forced myself not to do anyone too many favours. Quickly, the majority of the work I was creating was for the non-profit organization I was working part-time for. I did so much graphic design work for them that they proposed I’d work full time. Before I knew it, I had created my own job within the company and I now work as full tim in-house designer.
I consider myself pretty lucky but in part it was also because I forced myself to focus on the good projects and I turned down jobs that didn’t offer much in return. This doesn’t mean you can’t do people favours. When you do, be sure you’re not expecting much in return, except a lovely fuzzy feeling. You’ll feel good about it but it won’t put any bread on the table.
But money isn’t everything, right? Most (or most likely, all) of us here have a dream that we are pursuing (or living). By the time I was working full-time doing only design work, I had time to do stuff in my free time and the comic book project came back into my life. The dream I had as a kid became a hobby and after working on it for a few years I had allowed myself to consider the idea of my dream becoming more than that… A strange feeling but a very liberating one.
Making comics is the one thing I eventually want to be doing full time. I know this now and I am able to work my way towards that. And that means turning down almost every single freelance gig that comes my way. It’s not always easy but I just have to think about why I do it. Then it’s easy. Kind of.
My friend, making comics full time is not viable, unless you’re in the top 5. So don’t close every other door on the way to that dream. Always stand on 2 legs
I’m not saying you should close every door but I am making a conscious decision in turning down freelance gigs so that I can focus on my comic. I’m fortunate to find myself in a win-win situation right now because I have a very satisfying full-time job and time to spend on following my dream.
My point was just that you have to be realistic as far as how much time you have at your disposal. Once kids get in the equation, things change again and you have to make choices, choices that no one else can make for you. Advice should always be welcomed, it can help you in your decision making.
The whole ‘working on comics full time’ is a different debate altogether, let’s keep that for another day
The problem with making comics on a steady basis is WAY beyond a full time job. Personally it takes me even my sleep time. And I wouldn’t be able to do it and even keep on doing it unless I had my awesome part time other job.
So it’s great to set priorities, but please don’t sacrifice something because it will stand in the way of making comics FULL TIME. Most likely you’ll regret it
Only trying to share my experiences. Everyone’s follows his own path and I’m not claiming to hold any universal answers. Just figuring it out as I go along.
Sure thing friend
And we’re having an awesome conversation. Me from my part I’m just trying to prevent you from heading towards a non viable dream.
Well trust me, I do hope you prove me wrong! It’s just that I’m afraid the comics market is a cartel with little demand for indie work.
So it rings alarms to me to hear somebody saying full times comics is their goal towards which they are willing to sacrifice other things… say like a job, freelance work opportunities or even a family. And I’m not saying you said these things. Just making a discussion.
I should say, just as an adendum to this conversation, I personally know a decent number of full time comic folks. Many do work for the big two, but by no means all, and the ratio isn’t as lopsided today as it was say five years ago. Creator owned is a more complicated, arguably harder path, but it’s certainly possible and these days not much more unlikely than getting work with Marvel or DC, and if we’re not discouraging those sorts of aspirations, I don’t think there’s much reason to discourage the others either.
Obviously responsibilities to family and such come first, and you aren’t always able to turn away work when the rent is due, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case for Wouter.
Your viewpoint is more than absolutely valid, and I welcome the conversation. You make a very good point is saying one has to be realistic. The last thing I want is others to believe they should give up viable sources of income and projects to build their portfolio to pursue a maybe futile or near impossible dream.
I consider myself lucky that I have a fulfilling job that allows me to devote my spare time to making comics. The way I create my comics right now is very satisfying and viable. If I ever get to the point where I can quit my day job and only make comics, I’ll do a victory dance and find something else to do in my spare time!
I’m already living my dream in a way, I guess as artists we’re always pursuing the next goal or stepping stone that will elevate us to further heights. But by all means I did not mean to say one should give up everything for another thing that could very well be out of reach. So you are dead right on that, Demosthenes, for sure!
I love coming to the Paperwings Podacst. I know I’ll find great insight and advice as well as engage in good discussions such as this. Thanks
Ahoy Wingerz!
Wow, what a subject Lora! I have an experience that cost me dearly a long time ago.
When I first moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex here in Texas I made a connection through my school’s job board about needing an illustrator. I did not realize then that I should have had a deposit and a contract up front because I was so new to the process and I was afraid of scaring off the client.
I worked with him for 3 months and in the end I had about 125 storyboards and 20 other pieces consisting from character designs to setting layouts. I finally got a contract only to realize that it was a stipulated one consisting of clauses stating that I would only get paid if he gained the venture capitol he needed.
Yep, dumb move on my part. If I would have gotten paid on the agreed upon amount it would have been worth thousands to me and my family. I am much wiser (and pretty jaded at times) now.
I learned so many lessons like the ones you mention here and others that you described I have never faced so thank you for making me even wiser!!!!
You all are awesome!
I’ve done some illustration jobs last year that I only did for the money, but didn’t turn out spectacular. I also get a lot of requests from people that live in another world without money I guess. It’s quite funny, some graphic designer asked me if I could illustrate a postcard for her, while she clearly knows that being an illustrator is a paying job. Instead she first said that she didn’t have anything to offer except for exposure. And then I’ll always say that I can’t buy food with exposure. She mailed back to me that she understands and that she did like my drawing style so she was going to come back to me sooner or later.
I’ve started discussions about this type of client on several forums and some said it would be good to male a FAQ page on your website that tells people about costs (though not giving an exact quote of course) and I heard others say you should make a standard e-mail for these kind of people. But I think neither of them will really stop them from even try. But I’m done putting any energy in these kind of situations. Even when people are super enthusiastic (they often are by the way, maybe to try and compensate things or to get you over the line). My time is scarce, as I have a side job so I don’t have to take on every commission that comes my way. And I want to stay true to myself and my own preferences. And I’m just done with people begging for free illustrations, or people that promise exposure or a part of the profits that will never come into existence . Come on, it’s a real job you know.
While I admire Demosthenes’ attitude and would love to work for clients like that, I suck at setting prices, so I’ll have to somehow do with the offers I get. I do that by setting … boundaries:
When clients come in with a small budget: I tell them EXACTLY how much time per image it’ll buy them, and how much work I’m likely to get done within that time. 500$ for 10 images? That’s about one or one and a half hours per image, maybe two if I really like the client. I can get some decent work done within two hours, but it’ll be rather sketchy and not very detailed. If they understand what I’m telling them and are okay with it, I’ll do it.
Also, I make sure they understand that the artwork is really just for the purposes we’ve agreed on. They want to sell t-shirts in addition to that, we’ll have to extend the agreement.
Of course, you’ll always find clients who’ll pretend they haven’t heard you when what they’ve heard wasn’t what they wanted. Then, it’s a matter of being more stubborn than they are. But I’ll give any client the benefit of doubt at first. Also, documenting the original agreement, even in an informal e-mail, helps.
Hello Max! Well since you do have a way to calculate your prices by the time it takes you, why don’t you take the initiative? A client will repsect you more if you set your position firmly. He will think “this guy knows what he is doing and is not in dire need of my money.” It gives you the advantage in every sense.
I checked out your page and man this is new stuff! I loved every hero splash page, real estate man being my fave!
Thanks, Demosthenes! And, you’re right, of course. When a client asks for a price, what they want to hear is not “dunno… what do you have in mind?”, but a number. I’m professional enough to bluff myself through that, based on the time I expect it to take.
More often than not, the clients are so eager to pay what I tell them that I can’t help thinking I’ve asked too little.
The thing is, I can go either way. I can make a fancy full-color image and ask full price, or I can aim for a simpler design that meets the budget. But it has to be eiother this or that.
It’s good to have options. It’s up to the client then to decide.
About them being eager to accept your price, well go an inch further at a time until you find the right balance
I find it easier to hire someone who asks more than what I was expecting than asking less. Of course a price will never do it just by itself.
I’m working on it,
I am not a freelance artist, but I am a magician (who is trying to create an online comic book). I get asked every now and then if I can do an event for free and how much exposure it will give me.
I say “no” 99% of the time, but I am willing cave under these 3 circumstances.
1) Is it a cause I believe really strongly in.
(This has yet to happen)
2) Will I get in the news.
People think because I performed for an event I will get publicity, but this is not the case. If they say it pays in publicity I tell them that I have to give up a paid gig to do it and the paid gig gives just as much publicity. The exception is that getting in the paper, radio, or news is both a great way to get more exposure, it also is another addition to my press kit.
3) Alternative pay
I will sometime ask for free stuff or ask them to do something in return. An example is if they have a photographer working I might ask for some free promo photos (which would normally cost me money) or something like that.
My 3 requirements doesn’t work perfectly for freelancers, but gives an example of how I always make sure that it is win-win.
I like the alternative pay one. My studio and I are about to impliment some big things on our website for 2013, and one of them is audio fiction, but I don’t particularly think my voice fits all my fiction. One of my patrons, a guy who commissions me pretty frequently, has an excellent voice, so I’ve decided to simply trade him art for his voice talents. I should be gettign his firxst installment soon in exchange for a recreation (with original characters) of a classic Secret Wars cover I did for him a month or so back. Barterign is defiitely something I’ll consider if the other party has skills to offer that I cannot bring on my own.
I like th eother two as well, and I will say I’ve done some charity art events (single painting done live or similar) for the local women’s shelter, a fundraiser for tsunami victims in Japan last year, and some stuff for various charities benefitting troops overseas. There’s definitely soemthign to be said for working for causes.
Short version, great response!
I’ve been fortunate to avoid these offers. Another tip, even if the offer is good, is to ask for it in writing – I’ve known people who worked for free when they were expecting pay. I’m glad you mentioned personal projects as MORE IMPORTANT. I used to shy away a little, wondering if I will profit from my dream projects. But after the personal growth and critical success of Invizy & The Misfit Supers, I’m even more pumped to explore further personal horizons (still collaborating every chance I get, can’t forget how much I LOVE to collaborate)…
I try to get some percentage of the pay as a down payment before I work, even a small amount like a page or two up front. Likewise I tend to try to have the same situation set up for the folks I commission for pages. It takes some faith on the part of the person commissioning the work that the artist won’t flake, but nothing says “serious business” to me as an artist like willingness to put your money where your mouth is. And yes, contracts are always smart, always wtih someone you don’t know, and typically just as smart with people you do.
Ooh, good idea.
The best feedback I have very received from my art, is just from sketches i did for myself of places I’ve travelled too. Nothing to do with “big” clients that paid well, that artwork still remains unknown. I agree with every point Lora has made!
you’ll get there though (big, well-paying clients), you’re work is great and getting better all the time!
Sorry i meant the work I have done for big clients doesn’t get the same feedback in my portfolio as the work I have done for myself, but thanks Scott!
Thanks Lora for posting this. I think most of us learn this lesson the hard way. I am not sure if that is a “right of passage” or what for people in this business but I am so thankful there are articles like this to maybe help save a new artist to time and trouble of these types of projects.
Thanks again!
I once illustrated an entire medical book for the promise of exposure and a decent paycheck. I almost had to sue the client for the money before they paid. I did have to get a lawyer involved. There was NO exposure from the project because they decided that because I demanded the money promised in the contract, that they would relegate my credits to “additional art by..” when I illustrated the entire book.
Now I require a deposit, a signed contract that I write, and consistent email & phone contact until the project is complete.
Because a lot of my work involves Graphic and Web Design as well as illustration, I charge by the hour. I’ve heard too many horror stories about revision costs and refusal to pay. If I make a mistake, I don’t charge if it takes an hour to make corrections. However that is EXCEEDINGLY rare and only an exception to the rule. I have heard of some freelancers who, while charging revision fees, were unpaid because the client claimed that the revision was needed because of the fault of the freelancer.
The contract I write also states that they will not receive source files, if any, until payment is complete. I also state that I have the right to display work created for them upon completion (even though it’s already legal for me to do this. The same client who refused to pay also said I must have written permission to display work done for them, which is not legal under federal law.)
I also dropped a client because in the middle of the project, they announced that they needed an unannounced sabbatical and refused phone contact with me for 30 days. You have to raise your standards to get better clients, because none of us deserve to be abused.
I wish it hadn’t taken that experience to get to that place.
(Sorry, sharing this information is dangerous, so I’m not putting my whole name and gravatar email.)
Oh yeah, michael. Give away your source files and there goes your leverage – great point!
I made that mistake waaaaay too many times!
I’ve spent the last few years playing editor and mentor to artists who have ideas, but are kind of shaky on the writing front. I’m a writer who WANTS to work with artists, not just because I can’t do the one-man-show act, but also because I genuinely enjoy collaboration more than anything (that’s not hyperbole, in case you were wondering).
But, I also have stories I want to tell, and I’ve learned the same thing this post is talking about: you have to respect artists and you can’t take them away from their own project unless you’re serious about compensation.
A few years ago I hired an artist for a price we both agreed on (although, to be honest, it was probably not minimum wage), but she realized partway through the project that she didn’t want to work on someone else’s story, because she had stories of her own she wanted to tell, and the quality and punctuality of her work dropped dramatically as she spent less and less time working on pages for me and more time trying to put her own thing together. Eventually I called the project off.
I keep coming back to this experience now as I start trying to ramp up to get going on a new project for which I will need to find an artist (I had a co-creator, but she bailed for inscrutable reasons), and this post hit home.
Like Demosthenes said, it is crucial that any collaboration be mutually beneficial. Getting people excited about it and making it worth an artist’s while have to be the first step.
That story sounds too familiar
That is why contracts have delay fees. If one of the two parties along the way realizes he does not want to do this, he should also realize he is compromising the other party’s goals, be that a deadline (publisher’s end) or a living (artist’s end).
I’ve done a handful of underpaid “portfolio” projects that I didn’t really regret, but there have been a couple mistakes. Everyone has them, you learn from them, and move on.
I have to say, the thing that really showed me that my career as an artist is going places was the point at which I realized that I felt like I COULD say no. There’s that phase when you’re starting out in which you feel obligated to take everything that comes your way, and when I got an offer that I wasn’t interested in and realized that (financially and time-wise) I could afford to say no, it was pretty much the biggest milestone since my first break into the field.
It was one of the best feelings in the world, not just the ability to say no, but to finally understand the value of my own time and energy. I think that’s something really important that artists need to remember: undervaluing yourself does you no favors. When you’re not afraid to raise those rates to something livable, if you have good clients, they’ll respect you and understand. Sometimes the payback comes in different forms than money, but make sure it’s 110% worth it.
I can’t stress it enough: know your worth, the value of your time and energy. Don’t undervalue yourself.
“Understanding the value of [our] own time and energy.” – With that, you nailed it!
In my experience of working freelance I’ve had many clients come up with me with their children’s book proposals asking for me to put a complete book together in a very short amount of time with no guarantee of pay, usually with the promise of “exposure” or profit down the road.
After getting a pitch like that I typically ask how they plan to publish as this is usually a sign of how much sincerity they’re putting into the project. If they haven’t done any research into self publication, thats a sign to bail out fast. More often a client will say they’ll want to show to book to a publisher when its all finished. Then I have to explain that a publisher will want to see an idea that can stand on its own so that they can pick an artist that they already have that will suit their needs for marketing and distributing the final product and that you don’t need to do all this work ahead of time.
That’s a great response and a very professional and polite “stop wasting my time…”
I bet they look dumbfounded afterwards.
Excellent write-up, Lora! Between this and Zub’s post last week, we can all learn a valuable lesson or two about how to value and prioritize our time and efforts.
Bonnie Lass has been on hiatus for most of the year. That’s a big regret. But the truth is is that right now it doesn’t pay the bills, so I’ve had to focus my attentions elsewhere to keep afloat. The good news is that I HAVE landed a few gigs that are letting me break some new ground professionally. Not comics work, but until this past year I’d rarely done any work in the video game industry, which is something I’ve always wanted to test my mettle at.
But boy, could I share some horror stories of freelance nightmares from the past!
Sparing most of the gory details, I’ll just sum up a few things I’ve personally learned from some sour work arrangements…
• Lora, that number crunching, time sorting break down you’ve done above is crucial. Folks, make sure you do that for any potential opportunity! By all means, you can make sacrifices to work on certain projects if you like, but at least have the foresight to assess what exactly you’ll be expected to do and what you may need to re-prioritize to accommodate it.
• Don’t work for peanuts/backend pay/exposure. Unless you’re working with someone you truly admire/respect/trust. If somebody approaches you out of the blue (or on the occasion that you contact them first inquiring about their forum post, etc.) but doesn’t offer some sort of respectable compensation, you probably shouldn’t do it.
I will be frank. Out of high school, I was illustrating small release, vanity press children’s books. The most I think I ever got for one was $500. Usually about 12 to 16 illustrations. The lowest was under $200. Over my tenure at college, I did about 25 of these books.
DON’T DO THAT. That is not a thing you should do. Learn from my naivete.
Average illo took maybe 6 hours. Now let’s just go with the low figure of 12 illustrations. That’s 72 hours. Let’s divide that by the highest payment figure, $500.
Less than $7 an hour.
DON’T DO THAT. That’s the kind of money you earn if you just want to pick up some cash for the weekends when you’re still IN high school. You can’t put the time in on projects like that and expect to make a living, or even EARN A REPUTATION.
(Also, don’t invite your client over to your home office so she can glimpse your work process. I did this once for a local client and she just loomed over me for three hours dictating the most meticulous and asinine changes, one at a time, with no forethought, much less regard for my time and space. My nightmare.)
“Don’t work for peanuts/backend pay/exposure.”
I forgot that one, Michael but it’s such a good one. Like I said in response to Jake below, and, like the article you referenced (http://www.jimzub.com/?p=1953) there is seldom any money on the back end to split.
So thank you for brining that up!
Backend pay is a gray area.
On one hand, as a creator or co-creator, that’s generally where your compensation for a particular work is coming from.
On the other hand, if you’re just being “hired” to come in, do the job, and get out, then the client should be able to back up his ambition with some capital, up front, or at least incrementally as you work. That’s the thing—you’re not really “hired” if you’re not being compensated to complete the work. Don’t wait for backend “royalties” on a project you’re not personally vested in; it’s probably not coming.
Like Al Swearengen said, ‘I trust you know two percent of nothin’s xxxxin’ nothing.’ XD
…And there are ways to get “exposure for free” but they aren’t really free .. they take alot of WORK and a ton of TIME.
My own experiences have taught me to always have everything spelled out, and that’s where contracts are a good thing. It’s good to be protected but a contract usually has stuff spelled out clearly like pay, time, how many revisions you’re willing to do, etc., so if there’s a question about it later, you can refer to the contract.
Also, I also like an opt-out strategy. If things end up getting too much or too hot for either side, I find it’s better to punt than to fit a square peg in a round hole. Because sometimes you can’t cover everything in a contract and those things that pop up are the sort of thing that can be deal breakers. If it’s an on-going, open-ended project, putting a time to review after 30/60/90/etc can make it easier for everyone to modify terms to make the best working relationship possible.
I like that opt-out strategy too, Alan.
My boss when I was interning (and laying the foundations for what would become Bonnie Lass) summed things up pretty nicely once, in regards to working agreements between familiar parties: “Contracts keep friends, friends.”
Ah yes, the “portfolio” jobs. Also known as the jobs that try to sell you something you already get for free. Any project you do, be it yours or someone else’s should be a portfolio job, that is, soemthing you can put in a portfolo to get more work down the line. Thing is, if thats all that’s being brought to the table by a potential client, well, they really haven’t brought anything to the table at all, have they?
Also, in th modern age of social media, blog templates and print on demand publishing, you can set up your own comic online for virtually free, and have the option of making a hard copy product whenever you amass the audience to support it. Unless omeone has hundreds of thousands of eyeballs looking at what they already produce, “exposure” is the thing they’re looking to gain by having you tart up *their* project. Until you touch it, it’s just an idea in need of a writer, or just a script in need of an artist. And as the tweetable quote above says, if they’ve got all this exposure to offer, where is the paycheck?
Something else to consider, and I’ve said this before in these comments, is if you happen to make a bad choice and get into one of these projects, know that you have every right to fire your client. It sounds strange verbally, but as a freelancer a job is not employer/employee, it’s a business partnership between YouInc. and The Them Corporation. You are the CEO of YouInc. and you’ve got shareholders (your spouse/friends/family/landlord) to think of. Take freelance back to its military roots, you’re a mercenary, a highly trained specialist, an assassin. Assassins get paid. If you compromise your assassin’s code on getting paid, best make sure it’s for some appropriately righteous reason, something you believe in as much as your client. Sure, you might be Boba Fett, but Boba Fett will only kill Han Solo for free.
The thing is that most publishers are not going to put much money into advertising your book if it is creator owned. Now if you get optioned or something that’s a different story and suddenly they’ll care. But comics isn’t a profitable biz for the Indy creator or their publishers and printing is expensive as is. There isn’t much left for profit (sometimes nothing) much less advertising.
So if the burden of marketing falls on your shoulders anyways, this “exposure” myth is just that- a myth. You have to build your own readership, do your own marketing, get the book reviewed on your own.
I think this sort of time and energy is best spent on a project YOU own and are invested in and are passionate about.
I agree. I will say there are projects I’ve signed on for, not necessarily because I expected a paycheck, more because I liked my collaborators and wanted to work with them. Those are the only times these days (minus my personal projects) when I don’t get paid in some way. I’ve got to want to be there, either for the project, or the people, but I’m always getting soemthing tangible and direct from the deal.
I absolutely agree, if you’re going to put that kind of work in for marketing, it should be for a project that’s your baby.
That. Was a pretty brilliant analogy, Jake!
Musta’ missed it before.
It’s a rather invigorating notion, that both parties are really on an even playing field. Some projects just aren’t worth it once you see where they’re headed. And that could go for either side, in which case either one should feel justified in turning away.
It’s a pitfall that many MANY freelancers fall into, and it’s the primary way that larger companies take advantage of their freelance workforce (speaking more in terms of design work here, but it happens in comics and illustration too). They treat you like any other employee, except you’re expected to be on call and in the office working 24-7. And that’s not reasonable. Thinking the other way allows you to learn about the various ways to protect yourself and make sure you get paid as much as they get the work. Kill fees, low res comps until final pay, and clauses that cover how many revisions are allowed should be standard practice for any freelancer, but often are not. Once you have a set way of doing things that protects you from being taken advantage of, it’s easie to say “no” and not feel conflicted. Adn that’s not to say you can’t give a little on your procedures when the situation allows, but having a rigid base to start with puts you on a level field. You aren’t begging for work, you are *accepting* their offer.
The point is correct and I wish to offer the opposite side’s view on this topic, which actually is in total agreement.
I have hired quite a few artists and have come up with 2 basic rules that will guarantee a “happy ending”. Meaning both sides will be happy and willing to work again together.
These rules are basically the application in comic art commissions of a vital business principle: “A healthy deal must be mutually beneficial.”
In our case what do the two sides wish for? The publisher wants a quality art in a viable price, and on time! And he also wants an artist who won’t end up spreading negative rumors on his company. The artist on the other hand wants to make money and create something that will benefit him fame/portfolio wise.
So rule number 1, I never suggest a price. I tend to either agree on the artist’s original quote or not assign him the work at all. If the artist is not happy with the pay, I cannot hope he will put his heart into it, or have a good thing to say for me in the end. I require something I like in order to attach my label onto it, and wish to maintain my good name. So if we don’t agree on his price, it’s not wise to bargain. But if we do agree on his original quote, I expect wonders.
Rule number 2, it’s not good to have greater expectations from an artist than his portfolio’s quality. That means, giving an artist a 2nd chance when the first impression did not quite do it, is usually guarantee for bad feelings. When the artist finds himself unable to comply he feels offended. While in the beginning he was more than willing to try harder to get the job, if he does not actually succeed the common reaction is “You saw my work, why did you hire me if you wanted something else?!” Therefore be realistic. And it goes both ways. What you see is what you will most likely get. Good surprises are rare and you cannot count upon them.
So bottom line, getting on a project with little enthusiasm is not the best thing you could do with your time. Sometimes the rent will force us on such situations and hey… that’s life. But don’t forget that even these situations can be educational and make us more epxerienced for the next great opportunity knocking at our door.
This is a great, healthy perspective from the other side. Thanks for sharing!
And thank you for treating your artists well.
The way I see it we are all in this together. And we’re most definitely on the same side
Great point of view!
Mutual respect and accommodations all around are key in the success of any collaborative effort!
I couldn’t agree more!