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It probably what you mean by 'demanding'. There is also the saying 'beggers can't be choosers'. If you want profession level skill, fast turn around and no cost, well, you are going to be waiting a loooooooong time. However, I do think people should choose carefully. It would be better to work on the project by yourself than to bring on someone who you will just clash with. So I think being realistic is good, understand what you are asking from someone, but realise not everyone is going to work well with you. It's okay to polietly turn down someone

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The other 1/2 of Cyanide Tea l My Deviantart Account I My Tumber Account I Break Chance Memento I Ristorante Amore

I would love to clash with someone. At least then it would show they still have some kind of interest in the project.
It would be wonderful having someone say "this idea is terrible, we should do it this way instead". As long as we can compromise, it's much better than spending months on a bad idea.

I guess at the moment, I would like people to communicate. Last time one of my two co-writers said anything was almost 2 weeks ago. It's a shame, because the contributions towards the story that they did make in the first few days were great.

Here's a difficult question for people: How do you decide how much to pay people? I think it would be easiest to work out for artists because you can work out a price per character, expression, and whatever else.
But what about for writers? Do you pay by the amount they write, the time they spend on the project, or something else?

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Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

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Clashing is bad if you aren't getting anywhere though, or everyone gets angry because no-one is getting there way ^_^' It's better if people have similar likes and dislikes, are on the same page and feel pssionate about the same things. It's good to disagree on technical levels (like how to do such and such better) but not on subjective levels, because they are extremely hard to resolve and have people be okay with it.

Getting a team together is hard, it's hard to find the people that are like you AND have the skills and dedication to work on a long term project. But if people are into it, communication isn't a problem. If you are having problems with communications then it's a good sign that the team isn't working properly. Camille and I have... alot of ways to communicate and it's rare for a couple days to go past without us communicating at all for no reason. We have used PM here, Twitter, email, Google docs and Skype.

You pay writers per a certain set of words, usually something like 1000. The amount you pay is to be discussed between you and the writer.

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The other 1/2 of Cyanide Tea l My Deviantart Account I My Tumber Account I Break Chance Memento I Ristorante Amore

I think it's more important now than ever to stand out as a writer. When a writer releases something with limited resources and their talent shines, it makes the artist side within me to want to team up with them and realize their full vision. (Then again, if they're REALLY good, they will have highly skilled co-workers already)

But you still have to be careful... even if you're the writer behind Finding Nemo, you go plough through 250 million dollars and create a flop like John Carter, that will not bode well. Such a waste of artistic time and talent.

I am extremely envious of teams with professional level artists working for free or profit-share, it shows the artists have so much faith in you. Do not ever let them down.

I have had access to pro-level artists and musicians now but they cost a lot of money. The advantage though is I'll be able to switch and make different genres on the fly using different art styles without "letting go". (Bravo Gust for taking the risk with Atelier Ayesha) Sometimes it's not just how good somebody is -- it's oftentimes whether their technique is fit for the work or not.

On the contrary, most writers I've dealt with tend to go by the hour. There have been a fair number who work via the 1k, but they are in the minority.

Know what you have, know what you can pay, know if what you get will work for what you need it to. It all really depends on the person, their job, and what you need. Once again, experience is the best card in your hand.


Spot on. A lesson I should learn sooner or later.

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Per 1000 makes more sense in my opinion. Editors get paid per page/word, artists get paid per piece. I think their cost should be calculated on how long it takes for them to do something on average, but it's much easier for both parties to know where they stand if you are paying per packet of delivered information. Otherwise, how do you know HOW long they have worked, or how to you budget if the time is unknown?

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The other 1/2 of Cyanide Tea l My Deviantart Account I My Tumber Account I Break Chance Memento I Ristorante Amore

The same way the auto mechanic charges for labor. That's where you, the commissioner, come in. Before I start, I ask what their general word rate is. If anything seems off of estimates, I raise the issue. It's a delicate balance. Which is why I utterly hate dealing with that system and prefer the 1k rate.

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My common sense is tingling!
Woah! I actually have a website now.

Aww... I feel so bad after reading all these posts. Sorry for being in-active, but "Hey, I got a bit busy for a while, but let's get going!" Sorry for being such a bad co-writer ... I'm back (I know you already know that from the forums for the game) but I understand if you don't want me to work on the project anymore.

Anyways, to not be too off-topic, I agree with TrickWithAKnife that disagreeing about ideas can be good as long as it doesn't go on for a long time. In my opinion, working with people you don't know is okay, but it will make the project take longer. I think one should only pay people if they know them very well, or at least are 95% sure they will work well and as promised. You have to understand for projects (especially non-paid projects) people cannot be expected to always be there for the project, as most people have school or work and still have other things to do besides sitting on the computer all day.

It's ok, and I'm glad to have you back. Your ideas (and the ideas from the others too) were really good, but everyone suddenly disappeared at the same time.

I'm keeping the co-writer part on my signature, not because I want to replace anyone, but because sometimes having different people doing the scripts for different characters can add variety. All the characters I script are going to talk like me. And I noticed it in other visual novels too. So many characters just sound like the same person pretending to be someone else.

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Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA

Writing speeds tend to differ, and most professional artists charge by the word. Right now the industry average is $0.07-$0.10. A really good writer can command up to $0.14 for a short work. Longer works tend to run a tad less. Short stories will pay more, and novels will pay a penny or so less.

That's for commissions. For a commercial work, they normally take a percentage or the cover. Depending on agent, record, print run size and popularity, that can vary between fifteen and forty percent. People being paid in 1k increments is something I'd never *heard* of until I got here, and then the rates for that are offensively low. I heard about one offer here recently, where the rate was $100 for each 10k words, with a word limit of 50,000.

A good writer that's not rushed will average between 1 and 1.5k words a day, with no other projects. That includes research time and other similar things. For those of you doing the maths, that's $0.01 a word, over what is going to be a month to six weeks. In my area, you can't live on that. The writer in question refused.

The commissioner is selling games, and I will not name that person here. Those games go on sale at varying rates, between $15 and $25 a copy. Twenty copies of a new release, and they've paid for the writing. Even at a rate of say $0.03, they still make up that part of their investment in less than a hundred copies, and the writer can make his bills for the month.

Background artists are demanding $50-150 for BGs using the Mugen technique, and they're getting it. *I* can do one of those in less than an hour. As a writer, is my time worth that much less?

As a side note, how do you work it out if someone contracts out for 1kword rates, and finished on word 38,499? Work out a per-word rate you're willing to pay, and negotiate.

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I'm going to get off my soap-box now, and let you get back to your day.

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I have a team of four people, all of them friends and I personally forsee no problem with it because they are all going into the field of making videogames and they are very motivated. However I am a little worried about my artist because she does have a tendency to shut down when she is stressed out (she has Aspergers Syndrome) she is reliable, but needs to be calmed down every so often. I don't push my team members very hard because we are all going to school full-time and some of us are working so pushing everybody to make this their one and only concern in life seems a bit too much to me. We all want to finish this project (it is a very long one), but we do genuinely have things that get in the way. We are going to power through this game during the summer though. Wow, that was a bit of a tangent. I guess my point was that it is okay to have teammates that you are friends with, you just have to vet them carefully. I had a whole bunch of other friends try and sign on, but I knew they wouldn't be as dedicated to the project as I was so I had to say no.

As LateWhiteRabbit said earlier, you cannot be the "boss" of your team if you are not paying them. It may be your story or vision, but they are not tools. You can drive the project forward, but you need to let your teammate's skillsets govern their own spheres. You can provide input, but really you should let the experts work. As a writer I do have a "vision" of how the characters I write look, so I do tell this to my artist. However I ask them what they think of the design I have in my head and if it needs to be changed in their opinion. Point being, I work with them on the design so it fits with the character I have in my head. That way both of our skillsets come together to make a better product. ALWAYS ASK FOR INPUT is my point. That way everyone is involved and no one ends up feeling like a tool you are using for your grand vision.

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While I don't know the details or the people involved, I suspect that someone offering that price for writing is either not paying very much for backgrounds either or only needs like three of them. Many people think more in terms of total game budget than of fair wage - if they have a set amount, that's what they'll pay, regardless of how much they need done.

As for per-1K rather than per-word, I can't imagine anyone refusing to pay for the incomplete percentages as well, it's just easier for many people to visualise the whole cost in larger numbers.

But then, I don't generally hire authors, I do my own writing. For games at least. I once commissioned someone to write me a novella for my own personal pleasure and it only ran me a few hundred. I have trouble seeing how that person can make ends meet like that, but it was the price she offered, so...



Enh. *I* write that slowly, but I know a lot of novelists who go an awful lot faster than that, *while* working a second job. Writing speed varies.

But obviously, don't take a deal if it's a bad deal for you!

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Hanako Games

i would never do that especially if i was paid because that would be incredibly messed up and ruins your rep. since i just started doing sprite art i have no idea how much to charge someone because most game makers don't have a whole lot of money to spare to begin with.

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Holy hell, games are expensive to make! I wonder what the returns are like for those people playing hundreds of dollars for their game.

_________________
Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA

This and this might be useful in explaining how to work with a team.

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