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

[droidmonkey1]

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]

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]

If the writer is REALLY good, I think it is damn well warranted that they get half the profits.

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]

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

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

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.

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

[fever]

[HGohwell]

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]

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]

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

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[kytri]

Yeah I've seen load of these on every art and comics forum I've ever been on. The standard excuse I get for not showing samples is to prevent ideas being stolen and nothing I can say will ever convince them I do not want their ideas.

To me it's a really strong indicator that their writing isn't anything special, if they've ever written anything at all. Most professionals wouldn't act that entitled to that much of a stranger's time and trust without offering anything in return.

[Jenny-Toons]

The standard excuse I get for not showing samples is to prevent ideas being stolen and nothing I can say will ever convince them I do not want their ideas.

To me it's a really strong indicator that their writing isn't anything special, if they've ever written anything at all. Most professionals wouldn't act that entitled to that much of a stranger's time and trust without offering anything in return.

For me, I think this type of thinking hurts writers more than help them. I've been writing for a good while, and I've learned that ideas come and go -- it's the execution that matters. That's why we have movies, comics, shows, plays, etc, with similar plots, but the ones with the best executions are the ones that are remembered.

I can understand hiding specific ideas based on characters or worlds you've created or are along the lines of spoilers, but trying to hide a basic, undeveloped idea is kinda over the top for me. People need some type of work already out there to consider trusting and working with you

Then again, it's more or less that people who do this are often beginners, if not just inexperienced in actually publishing/showcasing their work.

[skicoak]

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.

Not looking at the various companies page rates for exact prices but more of a ratio to compare workload distribution to. These are companies like DC and Marvel so the model is likely very sound.

Probably a good marker also why they pay per task and not by the hour. Everyone's process/speed is going to vary and isn't always tied to quality of product.

[ratscout]

I think we writers sometimes think we've stumbled upon this brilliant idea that we're definitely going to make into this amazing story, and then when we try to write that idea, it doesn't come to fruition at all and the idea either ends up changing so much that it isn't like the original idea at all or it just gets dropped and we wait for a different perfect idea to make into a story.

Heck, I'm working on a short story right now that I've already re-written three times because I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working and why I was hating it so much and then it turned out that it was the style in which I was writing it that was holding it back; I changed the tense it was written in along with the voice and suddenly it really came to life. Imagine if I had pitched such an uncertain story to the artist and they were just waiting for me for weeks to make something that may or may not come to fruition XD.

It's incredibly dangerous to tell an artist that you have this amazing idea in the works when we know as authors that the likelihood of us completing the story is somewhat slim. So writers, if you ever post on the forums asking for an artist to work with you, please ask them to illustrate a completed story instead of something that's just bumping around in your brain. XD