paramnesia
May 7th, 2008, 05:00 PM
While browsing Gaia Online (Boredom and a touch of masochism will do that.) I came across many threads seeking artists. An unsettling but unsurprising majority didn't state any sort of compensation, be it Gaia gold (Hey, Mr. Bill Collector, do you take Gaia gold? No? Aw.), cash, or promises of royalties because their idea will naturally be a best selling book. Multiple threads wanted long term commitments, and just as many gave little actual information on the project itself, i.e. "Hey I have a comic I wanna do, PM me! :) :) :) " Those that did quote prices were low, very low, i.e. $2.37 to $4.75 for full page artwork and probably full ownership. Ow. But that’s Gaia for you.
This is leading somewhere, I promise. I didn’t expect anything other than this, but it did make me wonder about something.
I know rates are whatever is acceptable to the individual artist. To a school kid drawing in his room $5 a page may sound fantastic, but I believe a lot of these people looking for art want professional quality for ludicrously low prices. One example of a friend of mine comes to mind: someone emailed asking if 0.25 a page was good. I suspect he took the average cost of a comic book, divided it by the number of pages, and deduced that was the average price per page and artist is paid. I seriously hoped the person asking was very young and naive, but after a bit of investigative Googling I suspected he wasn’t that young after all.
But onto the question I wish to ask, finally. Perhaps the person cannot afford much but has the best intentions and so offers what he can afford, maybe only five or ten dollars a page. Do you look more kindly upon a request for nonpaying work versus a low rate? Do you find the later insulting?
This is leading somewhere, I promise. I didn’t expect anything other than this, but it did make me wonder about something.
I know rates are whatever is acceptable to the individual artist. To a school kid drawing in his room $5 a page may sound fantastic, but I believe a lot of these people looking for art want professional quality for ludicrously low prices. One example of a friend of mine comes to mind: someone emailed asking if 0.25 a page was good. I suspect he took the average cost of a comic book, divided it by the number of pages, and deduced that was the average price per page and artist is paid. I seriously hoped the person asking was very young and naive, but after a bit of investigative Googling I suspected he wasn’t that young after all.
But onto the question I wish to ask, finally. Perhaps the person cannot afford much but has the best intentions and so offers what he can afford, maybe only five or ten dollars a page. Do you look more kindly upon a request for nonpaying work versus a low rate? Do you find the later insulting?