Soapbox: About the Industry

See What Sticks

by Sandy Antunes
Jan 06,2006

See What Sticks

by Sandy Antunes

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." Henry Ford

Making a living as a freelancer is hard. The pay for writing starts out low. My efforts at teaming up with other freelancers are not bearing fruit. Lecturing gigs pay well but are infrequent. Editors seem to move on in mid-pitch. Payment on (late) publication almost disassociates effort from work. Pitching itself becomes a time-sinking obsession.

Like many others, I've taken a part-time job until my freelancing 'ramps up' to, oh, more than pizza money. "Ramps up" is such a convenient expression. It implies that the path is clear and, in fact, heading upwards, and that it's simply a matter of time before one ascends the lofty heights. But starting a freelance career isn't a clear path, A to B, ramen to steak.

The potential for a living as a freelancer is always there. But to realize that potential takes time and a network. The main difference between the successful freelancer and the skilled wage slave is not drive or work ethic or skill set. It's the network the freelancer builds to summon work.

Summon Gig: (2nd level Freelancer spell)

The Freelancer summons 1d4 job offers, each paying a base equal to his/her casting level in pennies per word. The Freelancer can double the pay rate for each person of higher level in their Network.

The key is networking, but until you have a network you don't know if that network will deliver work, or just help you commiserate about hard times. Peers are nice, patrons are better. A lot of networking is either begging for work, or sharing work hoping for favor in kind.

Of course, when well-paying RPG work is scarce, sharing may not be common. And when the pay is lousy, you can't afford to share out jobs. So some degree of cherry-picking and then just 'sharing' the leavings is expected.

A better plan for peers who network is akin to superhero team-ups-- you do your speciality, I do mine, and we favor each other for items not in our baliwick. A fine strategy-- but, again, not a big help in a poor-paying market. Twice of miserable pay is still miserable pay.

Worse, until you have the network, you don't know if what you're doing is the sort of work you really want to do. After all, writing a short Con scenario is always fun. Writing six of them in six weeks according to an outside spec and with dinner on the table defining success or failure, that's a different lifestyle.

There is the self-publishing route: assume all the risks, keep all the profits. It's a bit more of a lottery. Guaranteed miserable pay as a freelancer beats sinking money into lottery tickets. And RPG publishing tends to be 'print a lot and see what sticks'.

Considering, often, the cost of doing a market survey would be more than simply paying for a small print run, it's not as bad a model as one might guess. "No market survey" is not the same as a lottery, for example. A smart and industry-saavy person has a sense on what is more likely to hit.

In this regard, it's more like poker. Everyone's at the table trying to get a better hand, and hoping their good hand hits at the right time. You may have to lose a bit of money before things go your way. As one GPA member said (paraphrased), you won't know if you have a good game until you print it.

So if a freelancer is like a traveling poker player, trying to get into the good tables and hoping not to lose her shirt, well, that's not necessarily a bad life. And the analogy still supports the fact that the network is key.

It's not about the ideas or the games. Success is about the other players. It's about the dealers you face and whether they let you into the game-- and whether the game is crooked. It's about the other players and how you hold your own. There's a bit of luck and a lot of skill, work and time.

Everyone hopes for a 'runaway success' like M:TG, forgetting that M:TG wasn't Adkison first game. It didn't appear fully formed from Garfield's brow. In many ways, it was first specified out in marketing terms ('little set up, portable, short playing time'). It took a lot of cash to print-- and a decent network to get talented artists willing to work for royalties. And it took networking to get it into stores, into Cons, popular.

Oh heck, the word 'popular' is practically synonymous with 'networking'. Popular is well liked by a specific group of people. Networking is having your talents appreciated by the specific group of people who can sling work your way.

So to be a successful freelancer, you need to be popular. You need to build a network. And you need to deliver. Time, experience, networking, work. Then throw it out and see what sticks.

Here's hoping for a sticky year for us all.

Until next month,
Sandy