"Top 10 Lies told to Designers" (for the freelancers out there)

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Since folks are talking about their day-jobs and the relevance to contracts, just want to point out one thing that people should never forget about contracts.

[snip]

I agree with pretty much everything you said. That goes to the "unwilling" vs. "unable" issue.

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Justin, is there room in your life for developing a website devoted to information and possibly advocacy for independent publishers and freelancers in the RPG business? The two have more in common, in some ways, than either has with non-independent contractors.

Short answer: yes. That's something I had actually considered a little while ago when the Osseum fiasco broke. I'll have to post some hefty disclaimers at the top of the web page, but I think it's something I can work on.

[Jake Richmond]

Again, I appreciate the advice. This is something I'll look into.

[Clay]

Justin, it seems like it could be a useful thing for you to write an article about this subject and make it available to Forge members.

Personally I've found that Ron's recommendation is best, to get money up front for freelance work.  Unless money has been paid, people tend to get cold feet.  Once they've paid part of the money, they want to get what they've paid for, and at least under my agreements they don't get that until they've ponied up the rest of the money.  The only times I've waited for the money until the work was finished, and was successful, is when I did a large amount of work for a university. In this case a university with a good reputation for paying its bills, and one that I had done work for in the past.

[Editor Drew]

Aside from the WoTC reference in one of the posts (and reading the grievance webpage), i'm curious as to what other publishing companies are falling under this umbrella of scrutiny by some of the freelance folks here.  I am an editor for one of the largest medical publishers in the world and manage freelancers every day. In my experience, the freelancers that deliver their contractual obligations are paid to the letter of the contract or agreement within two weeks of the delivery date.  After that it is very simple...if the freelancer did a good job, met his/her deadline(s), and did not suffer any issues along the way then I'll ask them to work again on my future projects.  I have a reunite of great freelancers that i can count on because of it.  Sh*t, i've had knucklehead freelancers that i've had to pull up by the bootstraps and clean up shoddy work myself that still get paid for the junk they submit and in a timely manner.  This is the way our business is run certainly in my department, to my knowedge across the board in my company and, my guess is throughout the medical textbook publishing industry in general.  WE have staff legal advisers and just like the gentleman here has indicated on behalf of the freelancers; I have similarly been advised just to pay crappy freelancers for risk of breech of contract on OUR end.

In short, it may be that unscrupulous (foolish?) publishing companies in the gaming industry are blatantly disregarding contractual obligations, but i'd be very hesitant to paint publishing companies in general with as broad strokes as i see being brushed with here.

As ever,
  ACE

[Jake Richmond]

In short, it may be that unscrupulous (foolish?) publishing companies in the gaming industry are blatantly disregarding contractual obligations, but i'd be very hesitant to paint publishing companies in general with as broad strokes as i see being brushed with here.

Different industry man.  Pick an RPG publisher and theres a damn good chance that theres a mess of freelancers with very real and legitimate complaints about them. The possible exception is self publishers like us, and I've actually been burned by someone from the Forge before (despite what I said earlier). You won't find a lot of working freelancers willing to list names simply becaue its a small industry, and no one wants to hire a frelancer that bad mouths their publisher, whether the complaint is legitimate or not. Read my blog for some of my experiences.

The way the industry treats freelancers (and even staff) is shameful. No wonder everyone jumps ship to comics, novels, magazines or animation as soon as possible.

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Yes, I think its more prevalent in the rpg industry than in other industries. And I think that's largely because the freelancers who work in the rpg industry are for the most part either (1) just starting out or (2) not doing it as a principal means of employment. They don't treat themselves like professionals, which gives license to the publishers to treat them poorly. This is compounded by the fact that the rpg industry is not a particularly robust one, so you are also dealing with publishers who overextend themselves and are using Peter to pay Paul.

Interesting anecdote from earlier this week. I had an artist contact me who did a cover illo about two months ago. He politely asked me how I was doing and wondered if I'd be paying him any time soon. I felt like slapping him around. I thought I had paid the invoice already, but I had forgotten in the run-up to Gen Con. I told him: If I don't pay you on time, send me an e-mail; it means I forgot. He admitted that he was just used to dealing with late-payers in this biz.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

ACE, in this thread, no one is discussing any publishing industry except for role-playing. There is no broad brush painting anyone else, medical publishing or velvet-Elvis painting or whatever, as anything. I think everyone will do well to continue the discussion without getting roped into that implication.

Jake, have you discussed the matter of being burned with the independent publisher you've referred to? It is at least possible that he forgot in exactly the sense Justin is talking about. Artists who've worked with me can attest that I am often quite dumb, but also that I step up when reminded about stuff.

Best, Ron

[Jake Richmond]

Jake, have you discussed the matter of being burned with the independent publisher you've referred to? It is at least possible that he forgot in exactly the sense Justin is talking about.

I have. he did eventually pay me after several months. And he was pretty nice about it. It was actually one of my better experiences in the catagory of not getting paid on time/at all. Aas Justin said, a lot of publishers over extend them selves or just forget. We all know that publishing can be stressful, and when your trying to get a book out its very easy to forget stuff. Thats why I try to be understanding and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I've had plenty of situations where after turning in the work the publisher contacts me and tells me that there will be a delay in payment because they don't have the money they thought they did. I don't like that. It sucks. But at least they were good enough to email me and tell me. Next time, if I decide to work with them again, I can demand payment up front. There are way to many publishers that either lie and say they sent payment, claim that they don't have to pay you for 90 days (despite the fact that the contract stipulated payment on delivery) or just disapear altogether.

nd I think that's largely because the freelancers who work in the rpg industry are for the most part either (1) just starting out or (2) not doing it as a principal means of employment. They don't treat themselves like professionals, which gives license to the publishers to treat them poorly.

This is definetly part of it, but thats like saying the its the rape victims fault. Yes freelancers need to be stronger, tougher and smarter then this, but that dosent mean its okay for publishers to treat them like they do.


Anyway...

Interesting story:Back in July there were no less then 6 companies that owed me money for past jobs. When I announced on my site that I would be coming to Gencon the next month,  the very next day 2 of these companies withdrew their plans to attend (or decided that people involved with projects I had worked on wouldn't be attending). I spent a whole day at the show hunting down people that were supposed to pay me money The one gouy I was able to track down actually paid me on the spot and bought me lunch.



Note: I say this and right now I'm running late on 3 seperate projects, all for people who are probably reading this. I'll get back to work now. I've said my bit.

[Brand_Robins]

Once upon a time I did a lot of freelance work for a company that shall remain nameless. (Everyone knows who it is anyway, if they know me.) I'd done multiple books in a row for them, and not gotten paid for anything past the second. I went to the company and asked about it, and got the run around that has been so well detailed in this thread.

It started with the "we'll pay you soon, we just forgot." Then it went to the "we don't have any money now, but when we sell the next batch we will and we'll pay you then" trick. From there I got the "the gameline isn't doing well, don't you want to support it?" guilt trip. After that we got the "if you make us pay you we'll tell everyone you are ruining the game" line. Finally they came clean and told me, straight out, that they didn't have any intention of paying us and that, pretty much, there was jack all I could do about it.

It was probably a lucky coincedence that by that point I'd had such a falling out with the publisher in general that I lost all patience with that crap. I didn't want to write for the game anymore, and so I was willing to go to the wall about it. I let the company know that they would pay me, or I'd take legal action. They laughed. Then I had one of my co-author's sister in law, a partner in a major lawfirm focused on litigation, contact them. I got paid the next day.

The thing about it was that if I hadn't had that personal contact, I wouldn't have gotten paid. Even if I'd been willing to get a lawyer the truth is that it wasn't the contract that got me the money, it was the name of the lawfirm that did it. Most freelancers don't have that kind of juice (to be truthful, I didn't either -- it was a bluff).

Contracts in RPG land are shitty protection for a reason: they aren't meant to protect the author. They're meant to protect the publisher. That they do a decent job at. And that's all they do a decent job at.

[Justin D. Jacobson]

100% true.

On two separate occasions, I've written letters on behalf of freelancers to publishers who didn't pay on my lawyer letterhead. They both got paid just on the force of that letter.

It's not the squeaky wheel that gets paid. It's the squeaky wheel with big spikes on it that gets paid.

[Narf the Mouse]

I've never bought or sold anything, but it seems to me that if you don't get paid, you don't have a good relationship. And if the other publishers won't hire you because you push to get paid, then they won't pay you either.

[MikeRM]

I worked for a (non-RPG) publisher who was a notoriously bad payer, famous in the industry for it (in fact, the Publishers' Association took him to court and bankrupted him at one point because of it - he was bringing everyone into disrepute). I worked for him for 2 1/2 years and only got paid on time twice. (I was young, there weren't a lot of publishing jobs around, and he did eventually pay me each month, once I rang him and complained.)

The leverage I had over him was that he wanted me to continue to do work for him (largely, I think, because he knew nobody else would). And the leverage I exerted to get my final payment was to refuse to hand over my last piece of work until I had the cheque in hand.

We were doing business face-to-face, so that made it easier, but I suspect that in these days of low-res proofs and internet bank transfers you could do a version of the same thing. Prove you've done the work, but don't send it in until you've received payment.

Once the other party has what they want from you, if they have bad faith then they have no interest in giving you anything, especially if they see themselves in a position of power with plenty of other people wanting to work for them. It's then only by the exertion of more power - through the legal system - that you're going to get what you're owed.

Think of it as a conflict of interest which you have various tools to resolve. You have experience in doing that, right?