That summed up so much of the Golden Age of Magazines in the 1990s, especially the smaller, "edgier" ones. The regular lament was "Oh, we can't afford to pay contributors, but we're going to pay them, with interest, when we're successful/profitable." That's when you watched so many of them go out of their way NOT to be profitable, partly because so many of the magazines were tax scams in the first place and partly because the editor/publisher was getting so much content for free that why should they have to pay for it? (I worked for one magazine that, right after its subscription count took off after a writeup in "Wired," went two-and-a-half years between issues, then put out one more issue a year later before pulling the plug entirely.) Since then, I've watched attempted revivals on so many of those magazines, and some even reach out to old contributors in the hopes of goosing their Kickstarter or GoFundMe campaigns...and amazingly they're expecting those contributors to jump back in at the rate they were paid in 1995, which was absolutely nothing.
Many moons ago, I had worked with a number of comic companies from a business consulting perspective (before creating my own very indie publisher side hustle for a short while). With the clients at the time I was advocating for a stable page rate and expanded royalty structure as part of creator retention. I was also arguing that comics are not a self contained product but rather the testing ground for IP that could also expand into other medium, that comics were at the core of the value to maintain stickiness to the IP, and it was through these other licences that the page rates and creator royalties should be paid and maintained at “current rates” and continue to grow. I was applauded for a few months when a couple “top talent” creators were retained through such a contract. And then my consulting arrangement wasn’t extended once they realized it was just cheaper to outsource to Brazil and the Philippines and in many cases avoid royalties all together.
I just found out today about the royalties after the dealer takes their cut when we sell them our 172 page hardcover graphic novel 'Tale From The Wedding Present Volume Three' (retail price £25). The book was written by two authors and illustrated by me. I don't get paid a page rate, as I agreed to just take a share of the profits once the books were sold. I assumed a lot would sell because the band have a large following across the world. My mistake. Just because people like the band and their music, doesn't mean they have any interest in comics or graphic novels. Each unit costs £10.50 to print (we printed 1000) and it turns out we're left with £11 for each copy. Minus the £10.50 printing cost, that works out as 50p per copy sold - of which I receive 45% as the artist - coming to 22.5p per copy, or 0.001p per page!! The upside is we only sell 10% of the stock to dealers - the rest are sold at full price from the band's website and on the merchandise stall on tour, so there is some profit. I received the first payment of £1,448 for sales of Volume Two last week (which was published four years ago). I really should have asked for a page rate instead - ha, ha! Anyway, at this stage in my life, I'm doing it for the love and not the money.
The royalty chart may be the most revealing part of the post.
It’s almost a historical artifact now. A royalty threshold based on sales numbers that many books would love to reach today.
A lot of publishers tried to build creator-friendly alternatives to the big companies, and I don’t doubt their intentions. But eventually every business runs into the same reality:
The math is gonna math.
If the readership isn’t there, the royalties aren’t there either.
Similar situation in animation. I watched the rate of an animation script stay stagnant for decades, primarily because animation writers weren't able to be represented by the WGA. Without that kind of clout behind creative people, we're going to keep getting screwed.
These days, at least amongst prose book indie publishers, the position is to be explicitly Anti-Capitalist. I'm not going to debate the pros and cons of big "c" Capitalism, but if that's your publisher's stance, you can pretty much expect never to get paid. So I guess it's more honest in a way.
I seem to recall Jimmy Palmiotti saying something about all this as he exited mainstream comics for his own IPs, given how unfairly it is structured. I think his breakdown looked a lot like this one, come to think of it.
As one of those indie publishers, such as it is, I do pay a terrible page rate. After that, I split the patreon monthly with the artist, and when the book kickstartered we split our share 50/50, as promised. But it was never a living wage for the artist, who had no illusions.
In the end, they probably got a decent page rate if you added it all up, but it took a long time in delivering. I'd like to think I did it as fairly as possible as a penniless publisher, but I don't think we sold a thousand books, let alone 20,000. So a reward structure like this would have been a laughable deception on my part.
Being anti-The Man to avoid paying out staff is among the most The man things anyone could do
That summed up so much of the Golden Age of Magazines in the 1990s, especially the smaller, "edgier" ones. The regular lament was "Oh, we can't afford to pay contributors, but we're going to pay them, with interest, when we're successful/profitable." That's when you watched so many of them go out of their way NOT to be profitable, partly because so many of the magazines were tax scams in the first place and partly because the editor/publisher was getting so much content for free that why should they have to pay for it? (I worked for one magazine that, right after its subscription count took off after a writeup in "Wired," went two-and-a-half years between issues, then put out one more issue a year later before pulling the plug entirely.) Since then, I've watched attempted revivals on so many of those magazines, and some even reach out to old contributors in the hopes of goosing their Kickstarter or GoFundMe campaigns...and amazingly they're expecting those contributors to jump back in at the rate they were paid in 1995, which was absolutely nothing.
Many moons ago, I had worked with a number of comic companies from a business consulting perspective (before creating my own very indie publisher side hustle for a short while). With the clients at the time I was advocating for a stable page rate and expanded royalty structure as part of creator retention. I was also arguing that comics are not a self contained product but rather the testing ground for IP that could also expand into other medium, that comics were at the core of the value to maintain stickiness to the IP, and it was through these other licences that the page rates and creator royalties should be paid and maintained at “current rates” and continue to grow. I was applauded for a few months when a couple “top talent” creators were retained through such a contract. And then my consulting arrangement wasn’t extended once they realized it was just cheaper to outsource to Brazil and the Philippines and in many cases avoid royalties all together.
I just found out today about the royalties after the dealer takes their cut when we sell them our 172 page hardcover graphic novel 'Tale From The Wedding Present Volume Three' (retail price £25). The book was written by two authors and illustrated by me. I don't get paid a page rate, as I agreed to just take a share of the profits once the books were sold. I assumed a lot would sell because the band have a large following across the world. My mistake. Just because people like the band and their music, doesn't mean they have any interest in comics or graphic novels. Each unit costs £10.50 to print (we printed 1000) and it turns out we're left with £11 for each copy. Minus the £10.50 printing cost, that works out as 50p per copy sold - of which I receive 45% as the artist - coming to 22.5p per copy, or 0.001p per page!! The upside is we only sell 10% of the stock to dealers - the rest are sold at full price from the band's website and on the merchandise stall on tour, so there is some profit. I received the first payment of £1,448 for sales of Volume Two last week (which was published four years ago). I really should have asked for a page rate instead - ha, ha! Anyway, at this stage in my life, I'm doing it for the love and not the money.
I have a lot of friends who are musicians who make almost nothing from streaming. It’s the reason why I still pay for physical music.
Thanks for sharing this!
The royalty chart may be the most revealing part of the post.
It’s almost a historical artifact now. A royalty threshold based on sales numbers that many books would love to reach today.
A lot of publishers tried to build creator-friendly alternatives to the big companies, and I don’t doubt their intentions. But eventually every business runs into the same reality:
The math is gonna math.
If the readership isn’t there, the royalties aren’t there either.
Similar situation in animation. I watched the rate of an animation script stay stagnant for decades, primarily because animation writers weren't able to be represented by the WGA. Without that kind of clout behind creative people, we're going to keep getting screwed.
These days, at least amongst prose book indie publishers, the position is to be explicitly Anti-Capitalist. I'm not going to debate the pros and cons of big "c" Capitalism, but if that's your publisher's stance, you can pretty much expect never to get paid. So I guess it's more honest in a way.
They always manage to get paid, these anti-capitalists.
I seem to recall Jimmy Palmiotti saying something about all this as he exited mainstream comics for his own IPs, given how unfairly it is structured. I think his breakdown looked a lot like this one, come to think of it.
As one of those indie publishers, such as it is, I do pay a terrible page rate. After that, I split the patreon monthly with the artist, and when the book kickstartered we split our share 50/50, as promised. But it was never a living wage for the artist, who had no illusions.
In the end, they probably got a decent page rate if you added it all up, but it took a long time in delivering. I'd like to think I did it as fairly as possible as a penniless publisher, but I don't think we sold a thousand books, let alone 20,000. So a reward structure like this would have been a laughable deception on my part.
At this point, I should cite Kirby’s quote…