Just to clarify, these VTs are pitching for a collab but do not have a completed manuscript? Just an idea? I can understand the frustration in that case. That's like an artist asking to turn a writer's novel into a comic but not having a portfolio to share. I still question why it seems their is so much hate and discontent between creators. These VTs and "overzealous artists" should not be considered the standard.
Thats basically the problem with these collabs.
And I feel it's less hate and more people extending the title of "writer" and "artist" to these types and then frustratingly lumping them with the rest.
You're right, they're not the standard. But when people include them while arguing for a writer or an artist, they get included as the standard, which sucks.
This is the approach to colab compensation I would like to see more of - I'm under no delusion that any of us writers/artists here (who are basically all at the beginning of our careers), have $1300/week to throw around. That said - I think by making it clear what our value is we normalize compensation within the community.
I said it earlier but - I don't believe that a truly equitable colab project is possible unless all parties involved understand the value of the other's work.
This does not mean that money is not the end all-be-all of compensation and value.
Yeah - if anything collaborations are much more appropriate than commissions here. But those collaboration calls still need to have a basic understanding of what they're asking for. If I saw a writer or artist I recognized from the community put up a colab post I would reach out to them if I thought the project was interesting. (I've actually done this before with @kip & @ISNEKO, and @MinNCompany , none of these projects are really a thing yet but I'm still open to it.) - and that's just full projects. I've offered & received tons of advice and feedback to/from ppl in the community, which is effectively editing.
Sometimes the chance to work with someone you've gotten to know a bit online is valuable enough.
The problem I have with VT colabs is:
1) They don't understand what they're asking for.
2) They aren't a part of the community.
3) They have no known previous body of work to sample. (I'm being generous and counting good forum posts or a decent twitter/instagram as a previous body of work too.)
I think I keep getting caught up on this vague distinction of "community" being some level of achievement that can be earned....and that it will then validate an individual's calls for collaboration in a fundamental way.
It sets a weird undefined bar of behavior that somehow sets the VT apart from posters who answer the various polls about their favorite breakfast cereal and such, and then have a few updates on a Title/Project. Familiarity and likeability really don't change the timbre of a bad unpaid pitch.
And look...I'm general salty about many of the concepts of community that are championed in your idea.
My group has been posting on TAPAS for over two years now, two of us were active on the forums at various points and I've participated in others project assistance calls when my schedule allowed.
And not to drag up dead threads or previous debates...but this is the NICEST version of the general sentiment vocalized by some notable members of the "community"...
Telling VT that the route to acceptance is through community is problematic. Because there's always going to be other criteria in effect that pops up to create issues.
I can only speak for myself, but when I bring up VT's as not being community members, I mostly mean that they're not creators. IE, they have never created something. And I think being a person on tapas who regularly releases work does make ones request for a collaboration with another person on tapas who does that more notable.
It is not a free collab card or anything.
But as a tier 2 of community, it ALSO makes sense that someone who is creating content on tapas AND a regular in the forums would achieve a level of friendliness and familiarity that would make a collaboration more appealing.
Also not a free collab card.
I think it's difficult to communicate to people that 99% of us are busy making our own stuff, and largely not interested in collabs with strangers. I think advising these people that they should be creators and be creating things before they ask for collaboration is a good thing, but I agree that we need a way to communicate the reality that collaboration isn't common or easily achieved.
Which is why pushing the draw it/write it yourself narrative sometimes happens. You don't NEED a person of X skill, you need to work on your own skills.
It's a tough thing to communicate. I think Niah is trying to address it in a way by stressing the monetary value- not because we expect these people to pay that, but because they need to realize the wealth of work they're actually asking for.
Agree that this is a problem area, though.
(sorry if this is rambling-y, had trouble organizing my exact thoughts on it! XD )
I personally put up an unpaid collab request because I was under the (perhaps false...?) impression that I might find someone to partner with on a project.
Wordsmithing is its own art form, and I know that, like with anything else, it can be immensely challenging. To adequately communicate the nuances of feeling about a particular subject and its many facets is not something everyone can do with ease.
On one hand, as a writer, I get upset with people for putting down unpaid approaches because it's like, hello...I'm not getting paid for this either, yo. Writing actually takes work. (Dun dun dunnnnn.)
But hiring vs collaborating, to me, are different. Yes, they are both work, but one is less of a "job" per se, and more a fun, hopefully worthwhile, creative endeavor undertaken by both parties with the understanding that neither is necessarily in it for the money. Yeah, sure, money talks, and money is nice. (Making money off of a project would be fabulous. Sooo not rejecting money.) And, regardless of whether publication or being featured actually happens, it needs to be discussed so that no one enters into a project being taken advantage of.
I suppose that line--being taken advantage of--is the crux of the matter. Someone who has ideas but lacks a plot, solid cast with decent chemistry, understanding of mechanics of writing like framing and POV...that person is not necessarily merely a visionary because they may be writing, and if you write, you're a writer...but they don't have a story, and it is indicative of their lacking skillset to posit that they do.
Why I am more gracious than may be welcome: everyone starts somewhere. So many people are discouraged from pursuing their creativity and producing creative works because they believe they are posers, wannabes, and dreamers. But the reality is, if you draw, you're an artist. If you write, you're a writer. If you bake, you're a baker. No one said you had to be a good baker, yeah? And we recognize, with oft-painful clarity, the chasm between where we are and where we think we should be to merit the title "Writer" (or Artist, as the case may be). The difference I see between the two--wannabes vs genuine articles--is tenacity and passion. Practice makes better! To bridge that gap, practice is necessary; there are no shortcuts, even for geniuses (though admittedly...they do seem to have it a lot easier, don't they )! So the people who refuse to grow, who talk about writing/art but aren't willing to go for it and produce, are (perhaps unintentionally) being deceptive towards themselves and/or others.
If my unpaid collab request DID upset anyone, apologies...but I just could not read this thread in silence. Not all those who post are kids--I'm 29, and have two kids under three. Not all those who post are willing to showcase their work online for whatever reason. For a poet, it's obvious: I can't enter poetry in contests if I have it online. I may not be able to present it to a journal, because it is considered published if it is online. Sometimes it's because they suck with tech (hey, hi, hello). Maybe they don't love the internet as much as you, ok?! Not all those who post are unwilling or even unable to provide samples of their work. Maybe, like many people, they may just kinda suck at pitching.
Ehh...I digress. No one's perfect, and I don't think the point of this thread was to be super nit-picky and snobbish, but to give a better perspective on valuing people. And I think, between the lines, the righteous indignation shines through, rising up to defend people because they, and their work, are valuable.
I believe this is the first time I've seen someone here make the distinction between collaboration and contracting out the work. Nice to see someone point this out finally. It seems many of the points I've read are actually people stating they'd prefer to be contracted rather than work on a collaboration. Yet, if that's the case, the stipulation should be made. One of the many things I edit are collaboration contracts between writers and artists. These contracts finely detail how proceeds are to be split as well as how costs (editing, marketing, etc) are to be split. Collaborations are entirely different from contracted work. So glad you posted.
I understand completely... It's got dozens of working parts that are all opinion based...it's why it branches into tangential debates on Artists vs Writers, and so on, so frequently.
I focus on @niah146 's ideas about community's role in his plan because it's the weakest link logistically in my experience and opinion.
Others will obviously have different experiences and opinions.
I, personally, think there's a lot of impressions about this community that don't hold up under scrutiny.
I don't see where logistics fall into this discussion at all. You're overthinking things. I'm just encouraging people to remind VT colab posters about the value of the work they're asking for. To some extent this is something that is already done.
We can get needlessly technical about what constitutes a community member if you really want to - but like - whats the point of doing that? Community is a fuzzy concept and it's always going to be that way. I think we can all agree that many VT colab posts are not made by community members - cuz it's literally the only post these people ever make. I have no interest in making a clear definition of what it takes to be a part of the community because that would just lead to needless gatekeeping.
Again - All I'm asking is that people give a ballpark estimate of the monetary value of the project if it were to be a paid gig. Doing that is something I expect most of us to be capable of - and if not I laid out some rough guidelines for figuring it out in this post.
I am not asking that VT's start paying the people they work with.
I am not asking that every collaboration be strictly for pay.
I am not asking tapas staff to make this a rule.
It is simply a suggestion to the already active members of the forum community.
All of the potential benifits I laid out from doing this are not so much intricate pieces of a master plan, they are just my ideas about what might happen as a result of doing this.
(also I'm not pissy about it but I use they/them pronouns thanks)
My apologies, I usually try to be mindful of such matters. My bad.
You're repeatedly treating my dissenting opinion to most of this plan as "overthinking things".
It's not that complex of an objection... I disagree with your thoughts on this community and it's role in changing the value of a call for unpaid collaboration. If the VT's of the world are lead to believe, in any small part, that integration into the TAPAS forums are a route to future unpaid collaboration... Then that's misleading. Both for the hucksters amongst the VT's and for any potential creators because...
...in which gatekeeping does occur on many levels. Hell, that's the point of the thread...gatekeeping between people evaluating their labor and VT's with just ideas/plans. Admittedly this is more frequently done with a deft hand and often good intentions but it occurs.
And I wished you the best of luck with it...but still exercising my opinions and concerns.
Niah is specifically talking about VTs, it has nothing to do with regular collaboration! So, it's not about you, carry on like normal~!
Niah specifically said:
Also not about you! No worries, Kasukedo. There's nothing wrong with seeking out collaborations with other users when you're both creators with something to offer. No one's calling you out or calling out all unpaid collaborations.
Might come down to personal preference, but I think unwillingness to share your work when seeking collaboration is a decent deal breaker for me. Of course, one can always share their reason and test the waters.
On the idea of who or who is not part of our community... I immediately feel a gut-wrenching red flag go up when I see collab threads started by people who 1) don't have an avatar picture, and 2) are lacking some of the basic "badges" that shown they've more or less at least ghosted the forums for more than 2 minutes.
This is a thing that I honestly never understood until I met a girl in college. She was a fan of several series that were online that were popular. She had -amazing- mangalike skills and her notebook for college was a drawing book. She needed to draw to be able to listen in class. I asked her once if she considered posting her stuff online, on dA or tumblr (it was like 2005). And she laughed at me and said no because people online were toxic. I didn't argue with her, but it's an idea that's stuck with me. Someone with really nice art doesn't even notice that they're afraid to post something online because they have this preconceived notion that online people are toxic. Which, sadly, is true. From my own personal experience, you're more likely to ghost under everyone's radar forever.
Getting back to the collab thing...
I don't disagree with educating these people if they're truly clueless but I don't think it's fair to just assume they came onto this forum and know absolutely nothing about value of work. Sadly, I've had a few experiences online in a MMO (FF14) where someone did a Shout asking for some limited crafting materials (costed like 50 for 1 item, and the person wanted over 20, and the currency caps at 2000 for a user to hold, 800 a week). I did ask them what they'd pay for the item, and it was about 40% less than what the item was currently selling for (not listed for, but actual sales cause market history is love hahaha). I politely told them no and we both went about our business. I asked a friend who was on and she said it was one of those.... nicely put: cheapskate sharks. Going around shouting HEY I WANT THIS AND I'LL PAY in the hopes that they'll get someone who wants an immediate sale vs fair price for it. And that's a lot of what the collaborations sound like, here and on other sites.
The whole discussion of "collabs can't be free" actually frustrates the heck out of me. In my mind, the whole idea of a collab is people coming together to agree to make and modify something to make a thing. Whether it's posted online, or not, shown to people or not. The vague idea pitchers I think are from the offline world of business - where you pitch an idea that has nothing past a few storyboard ideas or scenes - and that gets accepted. I don't think it works as well online for artists because we want to see your history first before we entertain your idea. You want us to write a story for you - cool, show us your previous art with stuff dating back ten years. You want us to draw for you - cool, show us your written stuff dating back ten years. And we want hard firm dates so we can see your pace of completion.
I get all that; I understand it. At the same point, if I want to collab with a person who draws comics, now I feel entirely out of place because there's a discussion going on about "pay 200 minimum per page for a blah blah". My dudes, a lot of people look to collabs so that they can get a vision accomplished and a person they're looking for can fill that skill-not-acquired-slot.
That said, it does seem like most of this thread is targetted at those who are the cheap tricksters I mentioned above, or are kids, or are from that offline business world thing, but I don't think we've really come up with a solution so far in how to educate or address these people. It's not a problem that's limited to online. How to address those in this forum? Not too sure. One hand it's the job of the members, and on the other, it's the job of the mods to stop the uh, predatory spam from coming in or removing it once it's appeared.
Let's say it is a person that's a VT without that avatar picture and shows no evidence of having been on the forum more than 2 minutes. Could be a couple of reasons : 1 they're testing the site, 2 they're just looking to see if they get any interest at all, or 3 they don't care about the Tapas (forum) community at all and are here solely to get a collab shmuck. Or something else, of course. But if it's one of those 3, how do we even know that anything we say to them will be absorbed?
I hosted a game seminar once at a convention where we could get some feedback from attendees. We got about 15 or so notes back, from a room that had been packed with 100 people, so not bad. Out of that feedback, we totally ignored anything that was 100% negative feedback, just complaining, or seemed like the person was there for just five minutes. That left us with about 10 notes that were actually constructive, or compliments, or compliments with constructive ideas. If the VT gives nothing to really compliment on, then a response makes it sound like "Hey I'm interested but I won't do it because xyz" and the VT passes the reply off as dead-air.
I have good news. Such collaborations don't last long. Most can not write more than one chapter of the script and disappear.
I hope this is a pretty good lesson for newbie writers when you decided to write a Great Unique Story, and then at the very beginning you realized that you can't do it.
Therefore, I have a rule. I do not draw comics if the author cannot send at least three ready-made chapters. As it turned out, this is a pretty good filter. I draw a few sketches of characters (it takes about 1-3 hours of my time), but I don’t do anything else until I see the script.
Previously, I talked a lot with young people, because I organized geek events. And I'm already used to talking about great ideas for games / books / comics. I like their mood and passion, but they have no experience. This is normal for beginners. I myself once stopped writing stories and novels for this reason, and started again only ten years later.
It seems to me that the idea of making comics is very attractive for novice writers. And it seems illusoryly simple, since you don’t need to write much. That is why there are so many free offers here.
Most people make such offers not with malicious intent to use the artist’s work for free, but simply because they don’t understand the amount of time and effort that must be spent on such work. I often saw this when I worked as a graphic designer. The clients thought that I simply press the buttons and the design itself is done somehow.
And they also think that drawing brings joy to the artist and he/she is ready to draw anything for this.
Reflecting on a statement that felt relevant
I've since met a lot of this paranoid type of person, either as writer or drawers. But I, as a person looking as someone who might join a collab, see the lack of online prescence as a red-flag I mentioned before. If they've only been on the forums, or whatever site, for all of 2 minutes, then what tells me they have staying power?
Usually a small collaboration is a good place to start.
I'm an artist that does a bit of writing myself but admittedly has a harder time structuring my own writing on my own projects.
I don't expect a writer to have a whole story script written out before collaborating, but rather a solid idea/realistic understanding of how long or detailed of a project it may be. I usually am fine also sketching up the characters, so they also have a good idea if my art will fit with the story they are working on.
The type of collab I find most fun/worth it is one where the writer has a good idea of the what they want to do with the story/where they want to go with it, but I'm given the freedom to experiment a bit with art style and setting/ expand out of my usual comfort zone.
As long as I know what I'm capable of working on and a writer knows the beginning middle and end of their project. We can take it from there.
Just saw this thread after seeing yet another "writer looking for a drawing arm" thread and took to my keyboard to write a post about "how to get a collabing partner", but you got there first! Great post. Thank you for making something we can all refer to so we can set and ask for fair rates when the visionary is talking about their pie in the sky idea.
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