An Offer I Passed On
C. Edwards:
From my experiences over the last year I think I can safely say that yes, employers at every level, in every category, are using the current economic conditions to take full advantage of people. It's a buyer's market, all around.
Gregor Hutton:
I can see two sides to this...
(1) A publisher is just making use of available resources: fanboys/girls wishing to get a foot in the door as published RPG writers (akin to "I'd do ANYTHING to be on TV") -- so it's probably a somewhat typical arrangement (though most commonly with scenarios or monsters). The problem for the publisher is that these are likely to be enthusiastic but unpolished designers and will need editorial work and guidance. So I'm not shocked that a publisher would offer this deal to people and see if they get bites, something they can publish and maybe find a diamond in the rough. Still, this goes beyond "fan" stuff as they're getting the book(s) for free, right, so I personally think it's morally bankrupt.
(2) To offer a deal like that to someone who won the Diana Jones Award this last year is, pardon my French, a fucking joke. I'm astounded that someone would do that. It's not like they can't read the Roach and Grey Ranks to "evaluate" Jason's writing and games design ability. Jason, I would surmise, was far too polite in his turning them down. His work is out there and he doesn't have to prove anything to anybody. This blows my mind. They approached you, right?
It's a timely post, though. I was at Conpulsion in Edinburgh this last weekend and we had a few seminars. Martin Dougherty (who has a real ability to hammer out stuff) made some really good points about working for hire in his talk on making a living as a writer. His first question when offered work is always"you are going to pay me, right?" and his sage advice was that an answer of "no" should make you walk away.
Jason Morningstar:
Yeah, just to be clear, they approached me out of the blue, through BPG's generic email address, asking to contact me directly. I'm never going to be rude but it clearly wasn't in my best interests and I found the whole approach a little surprising.
Gregor Hutton:
Oh, and to be clear on my point of view: I have no problem with a publisher contacting someone out of the blue and saying "We like your published work and we have a position available. Would you like to be considered for the job? You would need to submit a writing and design test to see if you can do what we need with our properties." (after all, their style/IP may be different from what you can do). However, "Write me a book for free and we'll get back to you" is just too much for me.
Would they do the same to Wolfgang Baur? Or how about Greg Stafford, etc.?
Maybe they did?! You could be in good company.
Ron Edwards:
This is an opportunity to discuss a point, among us here in this thread.
In our hobby culture, some companies are considered "the big ones." This phrasing implies a degree of solvency, genuine market presence (as opposed to mere shelf presence), and widespread adoption of the company's games. As you know, I frequently question whether those implications are valid.
I've seen these tactics directed toward a number of other people like Luke, Jared, and Clinton, from all the various "big ones." I used to receive less hammer-like feelers a while ago, but that stopped around 2005.
(Side point: They're also common tactics among what I like to think of as the "envious of nothing special" companies, who'd very much like to be AEG and constantly mine the independent scene for talent to squeeze dry. That's what happened to Ferry Bazelmans' Soap.
The question is what these tactics tell us about these companies, especially the ones with the "popular," "big" culture-label. I guess they could indicate one of two things. Either ...
1. These companies are big and solvent and gleaming, in which case the tactics are kind of a casual, secondary policy to see whether anything else might be snapped up during the ordinary, already-profitable course of the day. If you're a big fish feeding on big food, you can afford to pick off tasty tidbits if you feel like it, and why bother cutting a tidbit a fair deal when your goal is to eat it anyway?
2. These companies are smoke and mirrors, bankrupt of ideas, desperate to maintain their shelf-space driven illusion of "bigness," and all too aware of Ken Hite's point that "boutique" RPG publishing (i.e., you and me) may collectively outweigh the rest in both profit and and content by a fair margin. In which case, the tactics in question are no more than pathetic, except that they're dangerous when directed toward relative newcomers to the publishing scene who don't know any better than to laugh at them.
Hey, here's another thought. You know who I'd like to hear from in all this? The folks at Arc Dream Publishing. Because they put out some cool stuff lately (Monsters and Other Childish Things), and if I'm not mistaken, their business model is far closer to independent and, at the least, is directly oriented toward the success of the creative people involved (Ben Baugh, Greg Stolze). I respect Dennis Detwiller and Shane Ivey, and I can't imagine that they'd pull any such bullshit to recruit material or people. I mean, it's all very well for me and you, here, to snort and roll our eyes at AEG in this and (oh so many) other cases, but of course - we would, wouldn't we? That's why I'd like to see the perspective from a company which is somewhat closer to the traditional construction, yet totally does not screw anyone over, including creative participants.
Huh. I think I'll email Shane and see if he wants to hop in. I hope it's clear that this isn't a "call-out" but rather a chance to extend this incident into a more generally-useful discussion.
Best, Ron
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