I saw this from a post at www.lifehacker.com , and while it's simple and we've seen or heard of most of them, there may be a couple that you can look out for.

It's probably most applicable to web designers, artists and writers.

http://www.paintercreativity.com/articles/top-10-lies.html

Hi there,

That's generally good stuff! I agree with nearly all of them without reservation.

I think #3, #6, and #9 might need massaging, at least in my experience with freelancers (artists, layout) in independent RPG publishing. I offer these thoughts on those points based on my Adept Press experience.

3 "Do this for us and you'll get great exposure! The jobs will just pour in!"

6 "Contract? We don't need no stinking contact! Aren't we friends?"

9 "Our budget is XXX dollars, firm."

Ron wrote:

6 "Contract? We don't need no stinking contact! Aren't we friends?"

I agree with Lewis that "friends" is a bullshit foundation for a business agreement. But I don't think contracts work well either. Too many freelancers are fucked in the ass by companies who don't pay them, and the contracts they signed so earnestly are so much worthless paper. WotC and White Wolf, I'm looking right at you, right now. You fool freelancers into being robbed and your worthless contracts are a tactic in this grotesque practice.

The only foundation for freelancer business that I've seen work well is cold hard payment, up front or very near to up front, before the hard work is under way. I take the risk by paying the person first. It's a good foundation: I haven't been cheated yet, and the artist/layout person can't be cheated, this way.

WotC and White Wolf, I'm looking right at you, right now.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has just established a Grievance desk specifically focused on WotC:

http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=22365&mode=thread&order=0

Paul

Anecdotal evidence: right now, today, many freelancers await their checks from role-playing companies. They continue to wait.

Typically, they do not get legal about it (a) because they think they might get paid soon, (b) they don't want to alienate or offend these companies' hiring staffs regarding future work, and (c) they don't have the cash or immediate knowledge to get a lawyer onto it.

Don't bother to post refutations of (a-c). I don't really care to debate about whether they are as much to blame as the companies for being in this position. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't; it doesn't concern me.

I'm saying that what the company is doing - signing the contract, then not living up to the bargain, is wrong. I'm also saying that the contracts do not protect the freelancer from the company doing this wrong thing, i.e., failing to pay.

The only protection against not being paid is to be paid up front.

Best, Ron

Just to pipe up with another data point, in my day job in publishing, I have yet to see a contract provided by a publishing house that protected the rights of a vendor.  Now, it's feasible that the vendor (here an artist) might ask the publishing house to sign a contract before work begins, but generally speaking, that's a dealbreaker from the point of view of a publishing house.  The exceptions are very large projects or very prominent vendors.  Unless you're a name or you're doing massive amounts of work, you're not getting anybody to sign a contract for your protection.  Generally money and contracts flow in the same direction.

My sould source of income (besides Panty Explosion sales) is my freelance work). Ron has the right of it. This industry is replete with companies that offer contracts and then break them immediatly. 4 times this year I've done work for companies where the contract THEY asked me to sign stipulated that they would make paayment immediatly upon completion, and each time payment was either never made or made several months late. After getting burned the second time I had a lawyer friend look into it. he told me that for the amount of money owed it simply wasn't worth my time to persue legal action.

This is common with every other freelancer I know. Companies don't pay, or hold of paying for months. When you complain they sy your difficult to work with. I've had more then one publisher turn me away becuase they said they heard bad things about me.

I feel that contracts are pretty close to useless. Instead I demand either full or half payment up front. If the client is unwilling to accept those terms then I have to think long and hard about whether its worth the risk.

As a side note, nobody from the Forge or Storygames has every been anything but fair and upfront with me. I've only had very good experiences with people who have contacted me through this forum.

Jake

Justin wrote: Not sure I understand the sentiment here. Contracts aren't worthless. If an aggrieved party doesn't want to exercise their rights under a contract, that's on them. I'd be interested in hearing about your anecdotal evidence on this point. I expect it comes down to the freelancer being either unknowledgable about their rights or unwilling to exercise them.

greyorm wrote:
Justin, some data points here from personal experience: do not confuse unable with unwilling.

Even a contract that specifically outlines what you as the artist are supposed to get out of a deal will do you no good if the company reneges on their agreement, mainly because lower-to-middle-class Joe Artist does not have the thousands of dollars out-of-pocket (and attendant time) necessary to bring the company to court just to get a judgement that he is legally owed his couple hundred dollars of payment.

Even when he does have the time and money to bring a company to court, depending on the company, a judgement still does not guarantee payment. The judgement just reestablishes that the contract was valid and that the company owes the artist money. The court is usually unable to force the company to pay the money; they can say, "Yes, legally, you have to pay them", but chances are you will still never see your money for the same reasons they didn't pay you in the first place, and you are out legal fees on top of it.

And if they don't abide by the judgement, you have to go back to court to point out they have not abided by the judgement, etc. (There are appeals that can be filed by them. A company could tie you up in court for years. They could file bankruptcy.)

I don't mean to scare anyone away from seeking restitution, or claim that this is the way it always works out, but the court system serves the American public, specifically as a way to gain rightful restitution, very poorly and thus claiming that anyone who can't afford to go through the costly expense -- financially or otherwise -- is "unwilling" is a mistaken judgement.

Joshua wrote: Just to pipe up with another data point, in my day job in publishing, I have yet to see a contract provided by a publishing house that protected the rights of a vendor.  Now, it's feasible that the vendor (here an artist) might ask the publishing house to sign a contract before work begins, but generally speaking, that's a dealbreaker from the point of view of a publishing house.  The exceptions are very large projects or very prominent vendors.  Unless you're a name or you're doing massive amounts of work, you're not getting anybody to sign a contract for your protection.  Generally money and contracts flow in the same direction.

Jake wrote: I had a lawyer friend look into it. he told me that for the amount of money owed it simply wasn't worth my time to persue legal action.

I appreciate your take on this Justin. This has been a big problem for me over the last year. Most of the jobs I do pay between $300-600. I take about 3 of these jobs a month. I always work under a contract, either my standard one I send to clients or one the client provides. While I don't think contracts are useless (for the reasons you state) I do know that there are tons of companies taht have no problem violating the terms of the conntracts they sign. it seems to be pretty close to standard practice in this industry. I've never done work for any of the really large companies, but I've worked for a number of mid size and smaller ones and I've seen "payment upon completion" become "payment after several months of angry emails" or "payment never".

I've been advised that taking legal action against a small business of this type over a few hundred bucks is a waste of my time. is this wrong? Should I be taking legal action?

I've also had problems with foriegn publishers in the past. Again, I was advised not to bother. Should I have?

Thanks,

Jake

Justin,

Fair enough. Like I said, my post was based on my personal experience with contracts, restitution, culpability, and the court system.

You state collecting money from debtors is fairly easy by various means. It was my experience/understanding that this required a secondary case after the first, once the debtor failed to pay on the judgement. Was I wrongly informed?

BTW, I am also not saying "contracts are useless, don't use them."
I am saying, "contracts don't guarantee you anything."

Hello,

If I'm not mistaken, there is a point among our posts here in which agreement is possible. It resides in the education of those who need it that contracts are not protective devices.

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.

Best, Ron

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. My day job is to be an itsy-tiny-teeny-weeny part of a great big group of people who oversee one huge contract, it is worth a number followed by a whole lot of zeros. The contract itself is too large to fit on my desk (well at least one of the exhibits - the Scope is), instead we keep it on a network since it takes up about 20 CD-ROMs. So its big. It is a contract with another company that has even more people working on it.

While not applicable to the day to day contract of a free-lancer, there is one thing that is applicable, if either side of the contract starts diggin' into it to get the other side to do something, we are fucked, with a capital f. It means the relationship has broken down. Niether one of us (meaning the two great big huge companies) are going to be happy with the outcome. Both of us are going to be screwed, and the relationship is fucked. The company we are paying is loosing a bunch of credability and will affect future contracts worth a ton of money, and we aren't gettin our product out which worth the contract money times a few more zeros. And I think that is what a lot of folks have saying above.

Point I If you have to revert to a contract your relationship is fucked. Many people equate contract with promise to have a good relationship and not have either party be fucked. But it isn't. If either party resorts to the contract, neither is going to get what they wanted. And most people that are freelancing it (either in writing buisness or "consulting" in other buisnesses like manufactoring and engineering) want a good relationship, good relationship means gettin a rep that you are easy to work with and can help get future work. 

Now, leading to the second point, we usually get what we want (but not always). Not because we wrote the contract, but because we are the 800 pound gorilla, pure and simple. The stakes are too high for the other guy. Which leads to point 2.

Point II If you deal with the 800 pound gorilla (which can be relative of course) make sure you know you are. And remember that he is the 800 pound gorilla. Don't expect it not to act like an 800 pound gorilla. Espically if the company you are dealing with is public, meaning worried about a stock price. The 800 pound gorilla knows its an 800 pound gorilla, and it knows that you don't want your relationship with it to go down the toilet, so even the "best" companies out there will stretch that the furthest it can go without breaking (or sometimes even) breaking it. It is in their bottom line interest to do so. To take as much advantage without damaging the relathionship. And if there are a million one pound monkeys out there, they might not even care about that, there are always more monkeys.

I was going to write some more, but realized that it was drifting off into speculation about contracts that I am not an expert in or couldn't even pretend to be. The jist of my arugements are about contracts, relathionships, and the need to not equate contract with guarantee for good relathionship, but rather at their best, damage control or how I can get fucked the least.

But this thread has made me think, and I thank everyone for that. I know now if I ever want freelance help, I will pony up the money. If you can't afford to pay someone less than a few hundred dollars at risk, then perhaps you shouldn't be thinking about publishing a book.

Apologies in advance if I took a thread that was near completition and beat a dead horse. it just got me thinking about contracts, working relationships with people in a contract, and thought those points might be of interest to people, looking at from a different standpoint.

Jake wrote:
I appreciate your take on this Justin. This has been a big problem for me over the last year. Most of the jobs I do pay between $300-600. I take about 3 of these jobs a month. I always work under a contract, either my standard one I send to clients or one the client provides. While I don't think contracts are useless (for the reasons you state) I do know that there are tons of companies taht have no problem violating the terms of the conntracts they sign. it seems to be pretty close to standard practice in this industry. I've never done work for any of the really large companies, but I've worked for a number of mid size and smaller ones and I've seen "payment upon completion" become "payment after several months of angry emails" or "payment never".

I've been advised that taking legal action against a small business of this type over a few hundred bucks is a waste of my time. is this wrong? Should I be taking legal action?

I've also had problems with foriegn publishers in the past. Again, I was advised not to bother. Should I have?

greyorm wrote: You state collecting money from debtors is fairly easy by various means. It was my experience/understanding that this required a secondary case after the first, once the debtor failed to pay on the judgement. Was I wrongly informed?

BTW, I am also not saying "contracts are useless, don't use them."
I am saying, "contracts don't guarantee you anything."

Steven wrote:
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]

Ron wrote:
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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?