So there's a column over at RPG.net about freelance authoring:
http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/free10aug05.html

Up front, I want to say: This is not a bash on rpg.net thread. Ain't nobody go putting down Lloyd Brown or anything.

Rather, it's about how, being familiar with the indie publishing model around here, every time I try to read this article some fuse in my brain blows out. I must be missing something. Why beg for 3 cents/word scraps when you can publish yourself? My question, directed at the indie publishers in the house, is Does doing freelance RPG writing even make sense to you anymore?

It's lower-risk doncha think?

In self publishing you're risking your creativity, your time, and some of your own out-of-pocket money.  In freelance work you're just risking your creativity and your time (and less time than it would take to self-publish I would think), not any of your out-of-pocket money. 

So, yeah, I can imagine plenty of situations where freelance might be more desirable than self publication.

-Eric

Also, self-publishing, you're committing yourself to personally supporting the product, pushing it into new markets, advertising it and all that rot.  If you don't want that then self-publishing probably isn't going to work out too well for you, but freelancing might.

Freelancers might also feel they aren't savvy business and prefer to let the business people handle everything but the creative bit.

Hey Larry,

System design, as a skill, is not well represented across the community of aspirant RPG freelancers. I think there are two variables at work here: a) indie mindset, and b) affinity for system design. The Forge is populated by folks with an interest and affinity for both. The larger freelancer space is populated by a lot of folks with no or limited affinity or interest in the work of system design. I don't think they're immune to the same 3 cents/word frustration that blows a fuse in your brain. They just don't consider system design to be a satisfying option.

Paul

Paul,

Ah, that's a good take. I was looking at it from an economic point of view as "Do more work - get bigger slice" or "Only writing, plus deal with submission process - get crap pay," and seeing it as some sort of laziness or naivite towards directing one's financial matters.

So freelancing is still the game for the people who are talented at writing GURPS sourcebooks or (urg) thinly-veiled fiction?

Why all the generalizations?

Some people freelance for some money. Some do it for recognition. Some do it for fun.
Some are very talented. Some are not.
Some are good at business stuff. Some are good at creative stuff. Or both. Some are good at nothing.

=)

As said before, going indie means you can make your work available to public by yourself. So you have to handle game design (if you're still speaking RPG) and publishing (and all that follows such as marketing). It just takes time.

Personally, I freelance because I don't have time to go indie right now. But I would if I could, since I honestly think I can cope with game design and all the stuff that goes along publishing.

Also, there could be a solution, that is to team up with other talents, but it'd sort of stop being real indie...

Money is a very good reason to do freelancing instead of publishing.

Let's say you write a smallish RPG supplement of about 30,000 words.  If you can get someone to buy that for $.03 a word, you're looking at $900 in your pocket and you never have to think about that project again. 

On the other hand, let's say you publish that with a $10 price tag through something like RPGNow.  Your first hurdle is that you have to get it ready: editing, proofing, layout, PDF production and artwork.  These things can range from free to very expensive, depending on how much of it you can do yourself and how much software you need to buy.  Of course, they'll still cost you time, possibly quite a bit of it.  Then you look at the income side.  If I'm remembering correctly, RPGNow.com takes about 20% off of sales, which is about $8 per unit and so you have to sell 113 copies to make the same $900 (assuming you did produce it with $0 out of pocket).  Since a lot of PDFs never sell that many copies (especially if you're not doing advertising, conventions, etc.), you may not ever make $900... and even if you do sell that many, it'll take several months or even years to make it all.

Technocrat13 wrote: In freelance work you're just risking your creativity and your time

I freelance partially because it means I get to work on games I love with people I enjoy working with.

My situation is slightly different, though, as I mostly do layout/design work with only a little bit of writing -- I enjoy a bit of writing now and then, but not as much as I enjoy design, and design pays the bills better, in my current situation.

cheers,
Adam Jury
www.talkinabout.com

Adam:  And it's a little hard to publish a game made up solely of design and layout (though heaven knows some companies try).

IME, most freelancers are would-be novelists. Part of the "brain drain" that the RPG business faces now is that I think many people with a good head for system design simply self-publish.

Its fun.

I got my name on a boxed set.  A boxed set!  How cool is that?

I got to write about a setting that I had already written a bunch about and got to work in a team.

And again, it was fun.

I'm not out on the prowl, looking for more work like it but the work I got fell into my lap at the absolute perfect time.

Having freelanced for three cents per word Canadian and now attempting to self-publish, I can tell you the answer is many-faceted.

First off, there's time and commitment that has already been addressed.  When freelancing, you write it, you send it, you get paid (eventually).  You dedicate a finite space of your life and get paid for it.  When self-publishing, you are dealing with a monster that wants to eat your entire life -- writing, development, production, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and so on.

Secondly, money -- it costs you nothing to freelance (usually).  I even scored a few free books as 'reference' for freelancing a game that I already played.  It cost the company nearly nothing and made me very happy.  And I got paid (eventually).  Self-publishing, on the other hand, requires an investment of your hard-earned, whether negligible or substantial.  In fact I'm only now reaching a point in my life where devoting a chunk of my monthly budget to a 'hobby' is really even feasible.

Thirdly, experience.  I and others (including Brand) have written for the 'big guys' in order to gather some experience for our own endeavors.  There's nothing like writing under someone else's restrictions to help you develop your sense of what you'd prefer the restrictions to be.  Additionally, at the time I was considering doing freelance writing and editing outside of gaming, and my book credits have appeared on my resume since -- I'm pretty sure the job I'm at now (editing at McGraw-Hill) is at least partially due to that inclusion.

Fourth -- not everybody knows about the indie-press revolution, and for lots of folks that's still not 'really' roleplaying.  There's a huge difference between writing a book of your entire creation and writing a book in a world that you play in regularly and enjoy.  In my personal lexicon, I call it the difference between being an author and being a writer -- being a hired gun is kinda cool on its own merits sometimes.  Recognition also weighs in here.  How cool is it to tell your friends that you wrote for Insert Big RPG Company Here?  Whoo!

And to address a point brought up by greyorm, I did have one game company try to renegotiate our fee after their sales were not as high as expected (due to sincere lack of marketing, as far as I could tell).  I politely declined and asked to be paid in full -- they did so, just a month or two after they were supposed to.

Hi, Larry.

The reasons stated before are good:  lack of capital requirement, minimal time requirement, and you know what you're getting paid up front (usually). 

Here's another:  you can pick and choose your favorites.  Want to write D20 this week and Fading Suns next?  Feel free.  Like to do CCGs every once in a while?  There's a mag or two that pays well for that.  Got a GURPS itch to scratch?  Scratch away. 

And another:  if you specialize in a particular type of book or product, you can write just that.  Are you an adventure-writer?  Sell one of those to each market.  Do you prefer source material?  If you stick with one game, you are capable of out-producing its ability to support material of that type.  What game really needs half a million words of adventure material each year? 

The big one, I think, is skills sets.  Writers are legion.  Writers, rules designers, editors, graphic designers, and business administratorrs--all in one package--are considerably rarer.  I can do 3 1/2 of those jobs, which leaves me splitting any income I receive from self-publishing with somebody else, whether it's through a partnership arrangement or paying a wage.  What loot I get as a freelancer is all mine.  Well, my wife's anyway.

I will say on the "whether or not they pay me issue" that I've never been burned by a publisher.  It's all in the company you keep.   

Hi Lloyd! Thanks for responding!

So I've gathered that there are indeed reasons why a writer would choose freelancing over self-publishing. I'll stop imagining publishers as some sort of bourgeois oppressors exploiting freelancers through control of the print and distribution system, then.*

Insightful comments, everyone.

*This is where I would include the smiley indicating a tongue-in-cheek statement, except smileys are not real Forge-y. (Kudos to Clinton for turning them off in the new software, in fact.)