Does a 50/50 split on potential profits REALLY make sense?

fever 2018-10-20 14:10:10 UTC #56

Whew...only the writer gets credit....

True, maybe for future collab-threads we need to be more specific, who does the lineart or coloring etc since it seems to me that mostly for collab all the artwork is given to the artist only. With this the writer also can understand the amount of work goes into each specific job and avoid misconception. Man, that survey really helps a lot

Susana_creating 2018-10-20 14:53:35 UTC #57

I have to put my two cents in here as a writer who is stepping into the art field. I agree that the artists' portion is more demanding labor-wise. I respect artists so much for their talent and ability, especially those that can deliver results quickly. However, to dismiss a writer, I must say, is quite disrespectful. Someone mentioned that heck we can get ideas while in the shower or getting our nails done, while that may be so, I'd love to meet a writer that genuinely has that time to just sit around and let the ideas come to them, let alone write them down whenever, research the credibility, fill in the plot holes, polish, then rewrite, followed by a final edit. I'm a mom as well so I really value my time and work strenuously in the limited time I have on my writing. This also takes time. I'm only defending those who put genuine time into polishing good works. I've seen all kinds of writing to understand there are some that just come up with ideas and deliver them as is, of course then their worth really should be less than 10%, I'm sorry, but a writer knows their own form of pain as well. I'm in a collaboration now, which I have offered a higher percentage but then the artist offered me a higher offered me a higher one since she likes my story, enjoys the art, and delivers quickly. On the other hand, I write the script, I make the storyboards with detailed notes, I am in charge of the promotion/the putting together the frames into a strip/and whatever else needs to be done and we've agreed on 50/50. It works for us. She delivers quickly but in return I meet my deadlines and do my part as well. Which by the way, I do agree the writer should be willing to take care of some technical things aside from writing. Again, I reiterate that 50/50 works for us but we have an understanding and I do believe it's fair to offer more to the artist, I'm just here to defend the writers who do put in the work and might be feeling dismissed. I don't mean to sound hostile at all by the way, I appreciate all sections of the creative arts so my love truly goes out to all who put their heart and soul into their work.

skicoak 2018-10-20 15:29:22 UTC #58

If it sounds like I'm being dismissive of writers, that's not my intent.

I have been more about pointing out the logistical fallacies in the standard "Writer seeking Artist" posts in this forums. The parties involved can come to whatever compromise works best for them but there's something almost predatory about asking artist to work on inequitable speculation considering the evidence of how publishers monetize the labor split. I'm saying the negotiations need to start from a different base than 50/50 profit split.

Susana_creating 2018-10-20 15:52:03 UTC #59

I completely understand your point and I wasn't directing to you in particular, just to defend in a general manner for the select few writers that do indeed put their effort where their mouth(or I guess their writing utensil) is and don't expect the artist to suffer labor alone.
If anything, thank you for your example to give the writers who post in the forums seeking artists what they should really be considering. I've noticed some, because I get curious on the posts, how disrespectful just a search post can be towards an artist. Like you said, it seems predatory or even mechanical. Artists are just as human as writers

droidmonkey1 2018-10-20 17:45:07 UTC #60

I think it's all comes down to the share of the work.
if in a certain case the writing is harder and longer and requires more efforts. then the drawing the split should go to the writer.
if in another case the art took more effort or time then the writing so the artist should get more.
in any case the one that do all the other lets call that "management" stuff should get extra.

ratscout 2018-10-20 17:59:41 UTC #62

If the writer is REALLY good, I think it is damn well warranted that they get half the profits. I think you can put the prettiest pictures on a page and it won't mean anything if the writing surrounding those pictures is lackluster and forgettable. It's kind of like watching a movie that has beautiful visuals but it sucks anyway because the writing is junk. People like to think writing is easy because literally everyone can just jump on their computer and start writing, but finding people who are REALLY good at it is really hard and those people should be well compensated for their good work. In fact, drawing is much the same; anyone can pick up a pencil and start drawing but it's REALLY difficult to find people who are pros at it.

On the other hand, if both the writer and the artist are kind of just starting out at their respective talents, I still think they should split the profits evenly one: so that the writer doesn't feel like they're being taken advantage of and two: so that there's no bad blood between the two. I mean, the audience is probably already going to be praising the artist more than the writer regardless of how well the story is working thanks to the writing, so again, I think the writer deserves SOME credit. XD

skicoak 2018-10-20 18:21:58 UTC #63

That's putting a qualitative value on the writer without doing the same for the artist.

The crux of this debate is about value of initial workload...and industry publisher rates bear out that these split the profits 50/50 proposals are over valuing the writers contributions WITHOUT establishing the individual's bonafides.

And frankly, if a REALLY good writer with a strong social media following is proposing 50/50 splits instead of paying their artists...it smacks of predatory behavior

Luminosophy 2018-10-20 18:28:03 UTC #64

You mean like this, the sentence right after what you quoted?

This is hardcore cherry picking for the sake of twisting a victim narrative.

fever 2018-10-20 18:33:39 UTC #65

HGohwell 2018-10-20 18:47:27 UTC #66

To be honest this entire discussion seems to just feed into itself. Writing is considered easy and less important so anyone can just sit down and write a masterpiece, therefore you have lots of first time writers going "I've just sat down and written a masterpiece with no experience I deserve an amazing artist and they should all be fighting for my attention" which in turn feeds into people thinking writers are acting entitled to artists better than their level at low/equal prices (for the record I don't think a lot of writers are predatory just naive). If writing got respected as hard work (different to art but still hard) that you need to put time and practice into then you might get more writers putting out portfolios and honestly saying "maybe my first time isn't worth 50/50".

It actually reminds me of the recent argument here over customer service workers being paid less than the back of store warehouse workers at the same store. The warehouse workers arguing they did more physical labour while the customer service workers argued their work was equally important and they had to put up with customers. They're different but both still hard and both important.

Point is arguing writing is the easy part and anyone can do it is what lead to lots of self published awful writing on Kindle and holding art as worth so much more because labour intensive is feeding into that. As I said before, in a pure collab where everyone puts in, it should be done on hours or jobs you do in the partnership but if it's a collab that's more like a paid by profit commission its a different matter and 50/50 could be viable. (I think that made sense).

I also don't think relying on industry standard is worth anything when every five minutes there's a new story about the industry underpaying or not paying or some other pay scandal.

fever 2018-10-20 18:52:12 UTC #67

No i just pointed out that artists do more type of works in a project than what writers seem to think. The fact that writers should get 50% is for me personally only okay if they help in other area, so the workload both party do closer to 50:50. Because it's clear that for artist they have more workload.
I dont think anyone here undermine that writing is not hard, in fact i and many people said it's just as hard. But art that goes into comic require more time and effort.

skicoak 2018-10-20 18:53:08 UTC #68

Not even remotely, I clearly explained that the issue relates to workloads...once you start putting qualitative value on the creators involved.. it gets murky but it's still relative to the posted publisher rates.

People get hired for the overall quality of their work... and paired as such as professionals.

They don't throw a couple of extra bucks in if the writer worked REALLY hard or EXTRA good that month.

Workload is quantitative, not qualitative.

ratscout 2018-10-20 18:58:33 UTC #69

Teehee. I was about to say this same thing but I don't like getting into arguments so I was going to just let it go. XD

Haha, this thread is a minefield already. This is why I would never want to work with anyone in the first place. Things get so ugly so fast and probably before I knew it I would end up hating writing and never want to do it again. LOL.

Raven_C 2018-10-20 18:58:57 UTC #70

I suppose ultimately we can (at least) all agree that if it's a genuine collab, it's gonna depend on many factors, like skill level of both, what the relationship is like between the artist & writer, and how workload is divided (which includes promotion & all that jazz). There's no simple answer since it depends on individual situations and what each party is comfortable with.

Jenny-Toons 2018-10-20 19:07:31 UTC #71

Exactly this.

As a person who does both writer and artist , both specialities require a lot of hard work and effort. I'd never say one is better than the other.

However, at the same time, I understand why this thread was made. It also depends on the level you're at and the amount of work you've done, hence it's not always gonna be 50/50.

A lot of these collabs we see asking for 50/50 do not even have notes or chapters made, let alone finished scripts/novels, to show their skillset. They're not showing people what they're capable of but expect others to showcase their abilities.

For me, it's really based on trust. I need to trust that the person I'm working with can have a strong work ethics and they have to trust that in me as well.

I'm not even counting ones that ask for partnerships because they're asking for someone to write the story with them, not for them.

kytri 2018-10-20 19:10:55 UTC #72

Yeah for me I think that it's more about hours put in than any one job being inherently easy. None of these jobs are easy. Personally I think everyone should get paid more.

I think for me just my experience with people who wanted me to draw their comic for them always wanted to split profits 50/50, and always were complete strangers who refused to show me any writing samples or tell me anything about the project they wanted drawn. Occasionally they'd say the story was fantasy and 200+ pages or whatever but no specifics. If I could be sure that 50% would be enough to cover my labor it would be one thing but in cases like that it's way more likely to be half of nothing.
And I'm just not interested in taking that kind of gamble.

fever 2018-10-20 19:18:22 UTC #73

I am both writer and artist. I think the debated topic is how much of a workload a writer is exactly doing, and some seemingly think artist has the same workload as writer because writing is also mentally exhausting therefore they should get 50%. But from my experience and many others do, the workload of an artist is more often than not, bigger, if the writer only do the script. The negotiation for profit split can go easy if we can establish even this mere fact, so we can split the workload as well. I just need to drop this but i think the discussion doesn't get heated and completely civil until recently, so there. Okay. I need to shut up now. Thank you :"

ratscout 2018-10-20 19:24:12 UTC #74

I have noticed this A LOT and it's really weird. Writers post on the forums all the time asking for an artist to illustrate their stories but like... They don't link to any of their writings or stories? It always seems really shady to me and I think to myself that no artist is going to work with them if they don't have any work to show. I also noticed that they're either really vague about how much the artist will be paid or they'll say they'll pay them by the profits made from the story or by exposure. Whenever someone says you'll be paid in exposure, RUN. XD I think it's a good rule of thumb to be absolutely transparent in any business forays, but especially in forays between an artist and a writer.

seru 2018-10-20 19:27:17 UTC #75

Just remember this:
As an artist, you have more to lose than to gain when collaborating with a writer. Make sure you think to yourself that the story will "work." Or it's a story you will write yourself.

Writing and coming up with plots are hard too but not as hard as doing art. It is never equal in terms of work load.

skicoak 2018-10-20 19:27:25 UTC #76

Maybe people are hung up on the concept of this being about artist versus writer...

Look at it this way, if the writer was seeking to put together a team to do the project and contacted one person to do the line art, one colorist and one letterer. Then proposed a profit split ....

Which sounds more equitable to you... a 4 way split or the writer get's 50% and the other three creators split the remaining 50%?

And if for some reason you want to address this by saying the letterer/colorists don't deserve equal shares... then the logical place to evaluate value of workload would be industry page rates... which conclusively does not support writers at the 50% percentile of workload value.