I’m tired of getting these stupid offers to work on people’s “passion projects” for free, usually with the promise of compensation when/if the project takes off. Guess what? I don’t care that you’re passionate about it, I care if you’re competent. When you knock on my door asking for free work, its a clear sign that you aren’t. You might have hopes that your project hits it big and that you’ll eventually get rich off of it, but if you REALLY believed in it, I feel like you’d be more willing to put your own livelihood on the line instead of asking an artist to do it for you. If I do a bunch of free work hoping it’ll pay off, I’m not doing other work that could actually feed me and pay my bills. And what happens when the project doesn’t get funded or some important factor blows up or everyone decides to quit out early? I get screwed. So, no. I don’t want to work on your passion project. Not unless I get paid up front.
Not my art - but oh man.
Yes. This whole thing yes. Also, in advance: I charge my professional freelance rates on every project. It’s expensive. Deal with it. And no, I never have a shortage of work, as all the unpaid projects eating up my time are the ones I’m doing for myself that are putting me in debt. Because I believe in them.Also artists, for the love of god demand pay for your work! And not pay later, pay NOW, especially if you’ve never worked with the person before. Make contracts. You can get exposure by yourself. If someone’s not willing to pay you and you’re out of work, do a personal project. You’ll get JUST as much money that way and be much more personally fulfilled, and be bringing your dreams and ideas to life instead of someone else’s.
I am an artist who uses words. And once my work is finished, I don’t charge a lot to people because e-publishing expects a thing to be cheap.
But let me tell you something - I firkin pay the artist who does my covers EXACTLY WHAT HER WORK IS WORTH. And that’s two weeks’ worth of food money for me. [don’t worry, I’m not starving. I’m just stating an equivalent worth] Usually the arrangement is half before and half after.
It is not hard to pay an artist. Seriously. If your passion project is worth enough to you, it’s worth an agreed price in cold, hard cash.
(via sermoth)