About Those Page Rates

They're Terrible, generally.

I’m not trying to single anyone out here, and I realize we all gotta start somewhere.

But I like to reality check.

Indie presses like to make much ado of how successful they are about sticking it to the man, and a couple out there also make a point of what generous page rates they pay. Why, they have successful Kickstarters that bring in The Dough, and LOOK! They pay a whopping $125 a page to contributors! And sell thousands of copies! Look how successful they are!

But I like to do the math.

40 contributors and you sell all of 4000 copies. OK, 4000 copies isn’t bad for a small press, but that boils down to an average audience of 100 buyers per contributor. That’s not exactly rolling in it.

And the page rate is $125 per page! OMG, that is three figures! Real Money!

Nice spin, I guess.

But that’s $125 per page for writing, pencils, inks, lettering and full color.

$125 per page is what a quality colorist gets at a mainstream company. For colors ALONE.

It takes roughly two days working VERY quickly to turn around a fully written and print ready color comic book page. ( So your $125 per page breaks down to all of $7.81 per hour assuming you only worked 8 hour days on that job.

Wow, that’s McDonald’s money!

More likely you had to work 10 hours or more per day to make that schedule: $6.25 per hour. Oh, and no benefits. No employer paying social security. Nothing. Take out that money as well, and you are working for something like $5 per hour.

Read that paragraph again. I want it to sink in.

But, hey Artist, you get to keep your rights, right? No work for hire, here! We indie presses are so generous!

That’s nice. Except it is highly likely there will be no market for those rights after that Kickstarter anthology comes out, and since the contract keeps those rights for X number of years after the book goes out of print, you’re talking, maybe, 5-10 years before you can do anything else with that work. Maybe. And even if you did, what is the likelihood that your short story from that anthology will have value after all that time? Short stories in comics have short shelf lives unless the creator is name enough to sell anthologies on their own.

And will you be able to move the original art?

Kickstarter braggadocio makes for nice publicity for these small presses, but the creators aren’t really getting much out of it, and they don’t even know it. Perhaps some of them are happy working for minimum wage, but in truth, they are working for even less money, when adjusted for inflation, than indie publishers paid back in the 1980’s. Indie companies paid a low of around $25 per page for a single task like penciling. I was being paid a crappy $50 per page for story and art. But I wasn’t lettering or coloring that art.

$50 a page when I started out is worth over $200 now. I got $65 a page for pencils. when I first went to Marvel and DC

Most small presses don’t pay $200 a page today. And adjusted for inflation they sure don’t pay $250 a page for pencils alone.

Yeah.

I get the idea that people want their work to be seen, and that maybe if the project does well, they’ll be able to build on that success. But what’s really happening here is that certain indie companies built a business model on poverty rates. None of these supposedly successful indie publishers would last five minutes were they not being subsidized by workers getting paid minimum wage or less.

You can work there if you want, you can take a chance. Maybe you can get some extra money selling copies. Go for it.

But be real about what’s going on here.

When you point this stuff out, the first thing the indie press publisher does is declare anyone who criticizes them is A) a bully or B) jealous.

It drives me crazy seeing these people promote themselves as huge successes when they want publicity, and then as poor, put-upon delicate creatures when they want protection. They’re slippery buggers. Bottom line, they’re using young creators to finance a lifestyle and build their rep.

And they can do that.

I’ve never known young creators to be very savvy about their choices. They are desperate to be seen. Even if you tell them point blank what is going on, there is a new generation lined up right behind them to take their place, certain they are the special snowflake nothing bad is ever going to happen to.

All I can do is post stuff like this here. But as long as people are going to fall for hype in press releases, these companies are going to continue to get what they want: the next desperate wannabe lined up to work for minimum wage. Considering a lot of those desperate wannabes are coming from web comics that pay nothing at all, that’s a step up, and there is an endless supply of suckers in the candy dish.

I certainly don’t expect beginners to get top rates. That’s not what I’m saying here. But many indie presses also get major licensed projects while still paying dead low rates. It’s ridiculous.

When I wrote about this years ago, one Patreon supporter got so angry they walked off in a huff re: my discussion of this issue. It seems odd to me that people will readily criticize Marvel and DC, but if you criticize a smaller publisher for dubious business practices, it’s like you kicked their puppy or something.

Well, being discrete was not only a waste of time here, but totally unnecessary because a website survey of industry rates is here for you to read.

For the record, I did not respond to the survey. Top earners are less likely to bother to fill it out. I know for a fact that top rates with major publishers are higher than those listed on this website.

OK.

I have not worked for many of these publishers and have no dog in this hunt other than seeing that year after year rates in comics are generally pretty terrible, adjusted for inflation, significantly lower than creators were paid forty years ago. Page rates then didn’t include everything - pencils/inks/color story - as many indies do now.

What’s worse, publishers fail to provide contracts for projects, and claim digital rights on property that they have not contracted for with no payment on the digital sales and nothing for foreign sales. I was sent letters by a number of creators complaining about it, asking what they could do. I am not a party to the action and have no standing in the matter, other than advising them to seek legal representation.

Creators who dare to question rates and business practices are bullied, sometimes by company stans who are sure their fave indie press is going to save comics. All of this is unacceptable and exploitative.

I throw up my hands.

People are cultish, the idea of a thing is more important to them than the reality of a thing.

Someday creators are going to get a clue that they have not signed away publishing rights to reuse works, and that their copyrights are being violated. And they are going to want to get paid for those rights. And someone is going to get the idea that they can get a lawyer via the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts with branches all over the country, and that they can get pro bono legal representation for their issues, which might just end up in a class action suit.

Ideally, these publishers will start doing right by creators before it gets that far. A lawsuit could destroy a small press.

No publisher has the right to anything beyond first use editions of your work in the absence of a written contract signed by you. There is no implied transferal of other rights.

No digital rights. No foreign rights. No subsidiary rights of any kind. NOTHING. http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Tasini-Case-Final-Decision-Authors-Win-17563.asp

People want to be mad at me for pointing this out. I do not care.

They’re going to believe what they’re going to believe. I do not care.

I care about creator rights.

If your publisher is not paying you for use of your work and if your publisher failed to provide a contract, get a lawyer.

Now.

But after all these years and with so many resources at their disposal, creators STILL refuse to act in their best interests.

Whatever.

I blog and move on.