After contributing a horror short story to an anthology last Fall, I’ve been researching what the current markets are like and came across this piece by longtime writer (and longtime writer of the business of writing) Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Now, referencing the Stanford Marshmallow Experiments might make this interesting alone, but the real reward is staying with the piece as she goes through plenty of historical numbers of what writers have been paid and, well,…
Okay, so it’s not the most uplifting article to link to, but I recently read Gita Jackson’s article for Vice about how comic book writers and artists get paid, and I had to share it. Perhaps because of my time producing indie video –and now audio– works, I am quietly obsessed by the kind of data Jackson gets into. How much does it cost to make a comic book? How much should it cost? What’s…
After last week’s post about being a self-sufficient artist who slices, dices –and probably self-publishes– I thought it was a good idea to look at the evergreen topic of creatives not getting paid. Writers being undervalued and being underpaid is an oft-told tale — and not just because there are writers around to write about it. Writer Matt Wallace created a freelance rebuttal guide that covers about just every usual reason given to not pay writers — or…
I should spend more time talking about and linking to Mark Evanier‘s series on rejection. However, in the meantime, in light of my post on Monday, I figured I’d list Part 7 of his Rejection series which covers low and no pay writing. One standout quote: “Working cheap or for free occasionally leads to getting paid decently but more often, it leads nowhere… or to more offers to work for little or no money.” At…
My head nodded knowingly, along many other part-time scribes, as I read Wil Wheaton’s piece last Fall about turning down Huffington Post’s offer to e-print a popular article of his in exchange for “exposure.” Wil Wheaton touches on what appears to be one of the most infuriating aspects of the modern economy (though I know examples of it have existed for ages): exposure is sufficient payment for creative work. Robert Bevan, from a post on…