Honest discussion about "UNPAID collabs"

[Glasgwyn]

@LordVincent has made a really good point here that I hope nobody misses - rather than arguing over who deserves / is entitled to what, it's better to just drop the idea of entitlement and be pragmatic.

Whether you are a writer or an artist, if you make an offer that isn't appealing to others, you won't get any bites, regardless of what you deserve or think you deserve.

If somebody makes an offer that doesn't appeal to you, you are under no obligation to take it.

People will only enter a collaboration if they both think there is a mutual benefit. Some of that benefit might be extrinsic / monetary, some might be intrinsic. But at the end of the day, individuals will make their own choices regarding which collaborations to enter and how.

The real question is whether we can respect that instead of arguing for others about what terms they should or shouldn't accept.

Speaking as a writer and artist, I would say more research goes into art. Particularly if you're doing a period piece.
With writing you can get away with "She put on her nightgown and snuggled into bed."
If you're going to draw that you have to research the type of nightgown and bed styles popular at the time and place and pray to the gods that the reference images are in decent angles and high res enough.

As a writer you'd be wasting your time describing the detailing and look of the items, as an artist you have to show those details.

Now if the writer in a collab is kind enough to do that all that research for the artist, then we'd be closing in on that gap.

Then again, there are actually people who don't do research when they draw And i've encountered them

[Glasgwyn]

However -- the fact in this forum is that a lot of people asking for unpaid collabs aren't experienced or they're still trying to gather some and don't really understand the implications of what they're doing (or they do and don't care).

There's always this to consider... that some parties in these unpaid collaboration threads are depending on this inexperience to take advantage of others in these dealings. A lack of knowledge can cloud a person's self interest.

But who are we to "judge" that a 'collaboration' will result in the other party get taken advantage over?
For all i know that 'collaboration' could result in a positive experience for that said other party, thus, if people like you go around and say unpaid collaboration is no good, such positive experiences will go extinct.
As someone who have experiences over unpaid collaboration, i'd like to say that good collaborations are very fun, in the sense that you have that other party/ies to talk art/story/stuffs about, having less workload since it's not just you who work on it, and the socializing aspect and so on

I'm just saying, in my opinion it's best to let people decide by theirself (your comment sounds like you're saying people have to stop people from taking on unpaid collaboration, if it's not what you meant then i guess this reply is useless lol ;w; insert awkward laughs here).
Unless the op who ask for collaboration have imply they will take advantage of others. And in those cases, without the need to be told, a lot of people will come upfront and question the op.

I apologize if my english is awful ;w;

[Pandastrophic]

such positive experiences will go extinct.

The main reason I discourage it is because you can get a positive experience while also getting payed.

[Glasgwyn]

Well, i guess you're right :o But then, paid works are different with unpaid works, isn't it?
So are the experiences, there are cases where costumers/commisioners go all bossy since they are paying D:
And when doing paid works usually it's a strict work-only talks, there are cases when it's not like that and you can converse as much as when doing unpaid works, but still, my point don't go away, the experiences are different, both the positive and negative.

[Luminosophy]

The main reason I discourage it is because you can get a positive experience while also getting payed.

I 100% understand where people are coming from when saying this. Though I'm assuming it's from the "I don't know you and you don't me, I don't necessarily care for your project all the way as the prospective artist so I need payment" perspective. On the flip side, what's strange to me is that when I think of payment regarding a potential collaboration I couldn't do it for money lol. It's not to be like "Ugh, only people who want money are sellouts/ not real artists". But for me it's like, you either have a project that's is so exciting I want to work on it without compensation because it's just that good, or I go work for myself. It just feels like even if I was getting paid, I'd still be losing in the sense of not having free time necessary to create something I do care about. In the same way some can't conceptualize working without payment, I can't conceptualize working for pay because of what the situation would imply for me.

I think it's mainly because in my mind what is considered a "true collaboration" is passion and teamwork driven rather than profit driven. I guess it's a lot more like a hobby in that sense where the entire goal is just to purely have fun with the project. I can't have fun if it's set up like a business deal and the writer is in total command of the story, especially if there's elements I don't like or the character designs are forcefully bland, etc. :v

I think it brings up what other people said too regarding comics being extremely difficult to make any real monetization off of. Especially if it's just two random amateurs. I don't think I could take anyone seriously if they're proposing a collab with the entire point being split profits. There's no legitimate incentive to collab solely for that purpose. You either have a good project you're flexible about other people working on or you have nothing of value to offer.

[skicoak]

But who are we to "judge" that a 'collaboration' will result in the other party get taken advantage over?

My position remains that any offer of a unpaid collaboration offering a 50/50 split of future profits is fundamentally unsound for a variety of reasons and is, logistically, taking advantage of a workload imbalance against the artist/art team.

The first and most clinical argument against ...publisher pay rates. If you click the link and sort through the various publishers... nobody pays the writer anywhere near 50%. This isn't a judgement of value, it's workload. I'm quite sure superstar writers and artists don't make basic page rates because they've demonstrated greater value to publishers individually.

The lack of knowledge of workload evaluation in page rates is the FIRST way artists are potentially taken advantage of. 50/50 is a red flag.

Page Rates – 2017

Secondly, the possibility of "future profits" is unlikely.

The inexperienced don't factor this into their decision making as much as they should. The imbalance in workloads means a different risk/loss level for the participants. "Future profits" is a red flag.

This last one... this is the one that sparks the most spirited debate...writers trying to sell you on their process and not their product is a red flag. It's invariably the way some writers try to undersell the workload balance issue. The inexperienced artist doesn't know to ask for finished scripts... they are often sold on "ideas" and testimonials about process.

In conclusion, it's not about "judging", it's about information. Not letting, the seen far too often, Unpaid 50/50 future split offer remain the norm.

[punkarsenic]

this isnt a major comment, but all this talk of research into writing kinda confuses me... in my experience, it doesnt feel like a massive part of every project, or even most projects? potentially it is, yes, but its also not something that can usually be quantified into a per page time value - you do your 5, 10, 200 hours collective research at the start or throughout, but rarely tied to any individual page, and not evenly.

one page will include an hour of research into the religious practices of 6th century kazakhstan, another page is just a fight scene where you draw on your preemptive research into kazakh period weaponry, the next page required no research at all. and spread across the entire work that research will probably add up to an average research time per page of like, twenty minutes at most?

making a historical-ish high fantasy, granted very loose on the facts, i find myself putting maybe 5 hours of research at most into a given chapter alongside a basis of maybe 30-50 collective hours preemptive research, and the vast majority of that research is artistic. maybe thats just me, it just feels like a weird thing that i dont see reflected in my own or my friends' writing experience

[Glasgwyn]

Oh, i totally understand the way you view collaboration :o
That being said, so you like to join in on the story's outcome? :o Just being curious, you mean you want to be like, a co-author? Or just, giving suggestions? If it's the first, then what about the ownership? It'll get divided? But regarding the art, the writer can't do anything about it? If it's yes to both, then don't it make the writer has less to offer?
Literally you'd own 3/4 of the result D:

[Jenny-Toons]

But regarding the art, the writer can't do anything about it? If it's yes to both, then don't it make the writer has less to offer?

Not necessarily. In my experience, just as there are writers who don't make good artists, there are artists who don't make good writers. Even if an artist is creating the visual aspect, they still need the written guidance of the writer (this is, if they're not both an artist and a writer).

They need storyboards, the interactions, the motives behind each character, the script and development. They also need feedback from the writer to see how things are looking visually. Likewise, the writer needs feedback as well -- they need to know if how they're planning the story so far makes sense to the artist and have to be able to answer good clarifying questions.

They both need to communicate with each other so that they agree with how the story goes.

You will hear a lot of people say "I came for the art, but I stayed for the writing", and that is true for a lot of things. Art alone can't always carry the story. For some stories, it can, but a lot of people want to read a good story when they come to read a comic.

Hence, you need both a good writer and a good artist to make it happen. Some people can be both, and don't need collabs. I am one of those people.

But there are others who aren't both and desire that other half.

The problem mostly comes because you just have inexperienced people who haven't done most of what I've mentioned. That's ok -- there's always room to improve. But when they don't want to improve or don't understand the "why" and "how" of improving -- then you have a problem.

[Luminosophy]

The way it works with my partner is that the collaboration was born both out of necessity and shared interest. Both of us work on both aspects, if it makes any sense. I might suggest ideas but not all of them go in because not all of them are good, but I also assert when he's struggling to work through a scenario that as an audience, I would really hate certain things being done. So I also push him to seek for better solutions. For artwork he'll have the general idea of how something should look that is ultimately based on a practical, mechanical level. I'll be given a list of materials and try to design within these parameters, while keeping in mind general aesthetics. How do I make it work but look good, and keep true to the original idea? (These are the kind of challenges I personally enjoy.) We'll go through revisions for these designs, but I'm still the ultimate authority on aesthetics just as he is on the story. Designs and art do come largely from the writing first, if they're so off-base they will completely ruin his plot so he's trying to ensure there's no logical errors.

Over time you get a really good idea of what the other person wants anyway so it's not as time consuming to figure out as one might think. For this sort of thing to work though, both people have to have assertive qualities. You have to be able to tell the other person when something is bad, and they have to be willing to accept the criticism. Without this there is no foundation for teamwork. Which is why I'm not really going to jump on the sort of "pitches" people offer in the forum. There's absolutely nothing to tell me they have these qualities as a person. It's also not necessarily "co-authoring" as much as it just ... I dunno... world building together? But the point is for me that if I don't get any say at all at what goes into the story or even on any design level, that's where people expect to be paid because there's no emotional investment in the project anymore. This isn't bad, but this is what I consider the "business" version of collaboration models.

Ownership is really just "Written by, Illustrated by" at the end of the day. 90% of the writing is his work, 90% of the artwork is my ideas so to credit it any other way would just start getting into semantics. Co-authoring is really a whole other thing in my mind compared to what we're doing if that makes sense. Co-creating is probably the better word. But again I'd have to stress, situation like these are rare and only come from both people enjoying each other's work. So in that regard ownership, profits, money all this kind of stuff is a lot less of an issue because it's not the point of why you're working together. Those topics would be on my mind a lot more when it comes down to working with someone I don't trust and don't know. But that's also why I don't put myself in that situation, because there's too much risk, even if I'm getting paid. I guess the other part is I don't trust an indie author to have the sort of funds that would adequately compensate for my time. The person I work with I know in real life so there's a lot more accountability and trust that was there in the first place. I don't think unpaid collabs inherently only exist to take advantage of artists.

I just think most people pitching them aren't writers, are either young and/or incredibly amateur, and legitimately, naively believe that promises of fame and fortune are enough to satisfy compensation for the other party. I guess to TL;DR it, they don't know how business works. Or otherwise don't even care that both parties need to mutually benefit.

[Glasgwyn]

Yeah, that's what i'm saying, not like you can run when you got born, so not like everyone are some geniuses who'll know stuffs without experiencing it, so i seriously think it's okay as well and actually kind of irritated that people here said being inexperienced is not ok.
And i really agree with that last line, if you're inexperienced and people kindly and mannerly tell you that you don't know because of the lack of inexperiences, and yet, you still don't want to be considerate of others, then it's a problem u_u

[SleepingPoppy]

so i seriously think it's okay as well and actually kind of irritated that people here said being inexperienced is not ok.

Literally no one is saying it's not okay to be inexperienced. I do have a problem with writers who insist an artist needs to draw their amazing story but they've never actually written that or any other story, and they refuse to even try to write it because "it's meant to be a comic".

I'm pretty sure thats the kind of writer most of us are talking about. Not just someone that happens to be inexperienced. I think inexperienced writers and artists working together to get better is great. It's just hard to match people up when they're strangers. But thats not typically whats going on in the Writer Seeking Artist boards. XD

[Glasgwyn]

The way it works with my partner is that the collaboration was born both out of necessity and shared interest. Both of us work on both aspects, if it makes any sense. I might suggest ideas but not all of them go in because not all of them are good, but I also assert when he's struggling to work through a scenario that as an audience, I would really hate certain things being done. So I also push him to seek for better solutions. For artwork he'll have the general idea of how something should look that is ultimately based on a practical, mechanical level. I'll be given a list of materials and try to design within these parameters, while keeping in mind general aesthetics. How do I make it work but look good, and keep true to the original idea? (These are the kind of challenges I personally enjoy.) We'll go through revisions for these designs, but I'm still the ultimate authority on aesthetics just as he is on the story. Designs and art do come largely from the writing first, if they're so off-base they will completely ruin his plot so he's trying to ensure there's no logical errors.

Over time you get a really good idea of what the other person wants anyway so it's not as time consuming to figure out as one might think. For this sort of thing to work though, both people have to have assertive qualities. You have to be able to tell the other person when something is bad, and they have to be willing to accept the criticism. Without this there is no foundation for teamwork. Which is why I'm not really going to jump on the sort of "pitches" people offer in the forum. There's absolutely nothing to tell me they have these qualities as a person. It's also not necessarily "co-authoring" as much as it just ... I dunno... world building together? But the point is for me that if I don't get any say at all at what goes into the story or even on any design level, that's where people expect to be paid because there's no emotional investment in the project anymore. This isn't bad, but this is what I consider the "business" version of collaboration models.

Ownership is really just "Written by, Illustrated by" at the end of the day. 90% of the writing is his work, 90% of the artwork is my ideas so to credit it any other way would just start getting into semantics. Co-authoring is really a whole other thing in my mind compared to what we're doing if that makes sense. Co-creating is probably the better word. But again I'd have to stress, situation like these are rare and only come from both people enjoying each other's work. So in that regard ownership, profits, money all this kind of stuff is a lot less of an issue because it's not the point of why you're working together. Those topics would be on my mind a lot more when it comes down to working with someone I don't trust and don't know. But that's also why I don't put myself in that situation, because there's too much risk, even if I'm getting paid. I guess the other part is I don't trust an indie author to have the sort of funds that would adequately compensate for my time. The person I work with I know in real life so there's a lot more accountability and trust that was there in the first place. I don't think unpaid collabs inherently only exist to take advantage of artists.

I just think most people pitching them aren't writers, are either young and/or incredibly amateur, and legitimately, naively believe that promises of fame and fortune are enough to satisfy compensation for the other party. I guess to TL;DR it, they don't know how business works. Or otherwise don't even care that both parties need to mutually benefit.

Yeah same, for me co-auhoring would mean you're involved by half on the story, and that's why i'm asking

Ohh, yeah, i think "co-creating" is more suitable

Same c: I actually never thought of it that way until reading this post

Same here, i also think they're just inexperienced, i hope people wouldn't get way too worked up to those people, they could not mean for anything harm out of their inexperiences, not like it'd kill you to talk nicely D:
For all i know they could be young and what you said might affect them negatively for the rest of their lives D: As i said, not like you'll end up dead by talking nicely D:

Or if doing that seems too hard for you, just don't say anything then.

It's nice we kind of have the same view regarding artist-writer collaboration ^o^

[Glasgwyn]

so i seriously think it's okay as well and actually kind of irritated that people here said being inexperienced is not ok.

Literally no one is saying it's not okay to be inexperienced.

Of course i don't meant literally, that's why i don't write that, i just simply say "people said that", in the sense that that's what almost everyone here are "strongly implying".

so i seriously think it's okay as well and actually kind of irritated that people here said being inexperienced is not ok.

I do have a problem with writers who insist an artist needs to draw their amazing story but they've never actually written that or any other story, and they refuse to even try to write it because "it's meant to be a comic".

Oh, i see.. :o
Well to be honest, if you think about it logically, no one can draw it, even the * insert a popular cartoonist here * if you don't create it on some form first XD And even if after they got told that and still don't change i guess it's a high chance that they're not being serious, i don't like people like that as well :')
That being said, there are other forms other than "story/novel", for comic-making, so like, they can opt for making "script" or "storyboard", though if that's the case, maybe it's wise to say it upfront :o

so i seriously think it's okay as well and actually kind of irritated that people here said being inexperienced is not ok.

I think inexperienced writers and artists working together to get better is great.

Same here!

so i seriously think it's okay as well and actually kind of irritated that people here said being inexperienced is not ok.

It's just hard to match people up when they're strangers.

I guess so :o I wish people would stop getting too hype over the fact that they're talking to stranger :') Just like how it's ok that your readers are strangers, collaborating with strangers that have proven their commiment(uhh i forgot the word atm) is ok as well.
Because the thing is, collaborating with people you know not guarantee result as well :') I'm not sure about long-time-like-a-decade friends, but people like quite-close classmates that's deemed "not strangers", might still not cut it for collaboration if their personality and work ethics just not suit for collaboration though "you know them".

so i seriously think it's okay as well and actually kind of irritated that people here said being inexperienced is not ok.

But thats not typically whats going on in the Writer Seeking Artist boards. XD

Is that so? ;w;

[SleepingPoppy]

Of course i don't meant literally, that's why i don't write that, i just simply say "people said that", in the sense that that's what almost everyone here are "strongly implying".

I disagree that that's being implied. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I wish people would stop getting too hype over the fact that they're talking to stranger :')

It's hard to know if you're on the same level as someone, or if you'd mesh well, when they're a stranger. Any and all collaborations have their potential pit falls. But we were talking specifically about inexperienced people finding each other online, so literally all I was saying is "thats hard".

Is that so? ;w;

That is how I see it. You are free to have a different impression.

[skicoak]

All somebody has to do is browse the Collaborations board for awhile to see a big difference between what someone like @HazeAmaze is posting and what we're talking about.

One is active on the boards, posts a very specific description of what they're looking for, and is clear about compensation/opportunity.

The others... are treating it like it's a want ad. It's their only post on the Tapas forums or it's a string of posts about looking for unpaid artists. They vaguely post about what they want to do... not what they've done. When questioned about specifics they disappear or want to move conversation to DMs.

And this isn't saying they're all predatory, but as others have stated... Their inexperience leads them to follow bad examples and think this is how good business is done.

On a secondary note, watch when artist seeks writer.

They post samples of art and then we see similarly vague pitches of a Game of Thrones story they'd love them to draw. Where are the 3-4 page pitches that both parties could use to test the waters of how they might work together? Few and far in between.

Yeah, it's a pessimistic viewpoint, but it's born from experience and lessons learned.

Collaborations CAN be great experiences but they can also break you. Choose wisely and with wide open eyes.

[MrSpuds]

Well I'm legally blind so I couldn't draw even if I wanted to, that's why I collab. Also because the artist I work with likes doing the same stuff as me.

[Glasgwyn]

1. Well, then i agree to disagree
2. I see.
3. I know, i'm not questioning anyway, it's that kind of context

[vfinnigan]

This is why most of my work (nearly all of it collaborative) involves a contract, and some of it involves money changing hands up front. The unpaid work even comes with a contract stipulating such. HOWEVER! If someone says they'll pay you in "exposure," don't settle for that if there's something better available that will comp you something - money, hard copies, space at their convention table where you can sell commissions, whatever..

[Chroma]

As a writer, it's kind of embarrassing to admit that I used to be the kind of person to post unpaid collabs, with the offer of "splitting revenue". I was way too naive about the amount of money a webcomic can generate, even with platforms like Patreon. It can be really easy to fool yourself into a sense of certainty that your idea is going to "make it big", when any kind of large success will take months or more likely years to come to fruition.

To any writer on the platform, I think that unpaid collaborations might work for short stories if both parties are looking to expand their portfolios a little, but anyone with a sprawling narrative needs to think about compensation. Your comic may make enough money to pay for itself one day, but until that day comes, your artist needs to eat. Maybe that means limiting updates to once every two weeks to pay for their rates, but if that's how it has to be, that's what it needs to be.