Writers Wanted for Super Nintendo Book

[Bratwurst]

I'm sorry, but as someone that has worked in the entertainment industry for many years, my perspective is that if you are deriving a commercial benefit from someone else's hard work, you should compensate them for it. I'm frankly shocked your publisher would think creating a huge swath of the content of a book using other people's uncompensated contributions is acceptable. I also don't know many authors who go around asking for 350 word contributions for literally hundreds of games like you are trying to do here. A foreword or a cover endorsement, sure. Tens of thousands of words comprising a substantial portion of the book is just way beyond reasonable. Again, if you go out and interview people that's one thing, but you are asking people to write something original and hand it over to you for commercial benefit. That's just offensive and wrong.

There are better things to get indignant about.

[Aussie2B]

I get where Bojay is coming from. In the world of games journalism, getting someone to pay you decently for your work is hard enough as it is, and then there are all the people who won't pay at all, and all the kids on YouTube and such who will happily snap at the "opportunity" to write for free just because it gets them in print or *~exposure~*, which only devalues our work, making it that much harder to get decent compensation. But I don't really blame these kids (or the older folks who do it just for a lark) nor the people who profit off of them (because, let's be real, most are making a sub-minimum wage profit; if they were making a good profit, then they probably would compensate their writers). I mean, I was in my 20s once, writing for free for a print magazine, just because I enjoyed it and loved seeing my name and work in print. And I was able to use that work as leverage to land better gigs. But would I take an unpaid job now? Hell no. Seeing my work and name in print is hardly a novel thing anymore, now that I have more mags containing my work kicking around than I know what to do with, and if people want to reap the benefits of the 15+ years that I've developed my writing ability and racked up professional experience, that comes at a price.

[Bojay1997]

There are better things to get indignant about.

Perhaps, but this strikes me as extremely offensive. This author and publisher are essentially taking a substantial amount of original work and using it to create a wholly commercial product for which they are the only beneficiaries. I mean not even an offer of a copy of the finished product? That's just low.

[8bitgamer]

Perhaps, but this strikes me as extremely offensive. This author and publisher are essentially taking a substantial amount of original work and using it to create a wholly commercial product for which they are the only beneficiaries. I mean not even an offer of a copy of the finished product? That's just low.

No one is forcing the contributors to write stories for the book. They are doing it to share their stories, and they're having a lot of fun doing so. Their stories of gaming in the 90s will live in print for decades, and they're pretty darned excited about that. BTW, I'm doing a complete write-up for every game. The contributors are adding anecdotes and the like, which are fun and don't take long at all. If someone doesn't want to contribute because they want to get paid, I certainly understand that. No harm, no foul, just a fun book about a niche subject, the SNES. Trust me, I won't get rich off of this. In fact, I won't even make minimum wage when you consider the time involved.

[Bojay1997]

No one is forcing the contributors to write stories for the book. They are doing it to share their stories, and they're having a lot of fun doing so. Their stories of gaming in the 90s will live in print for decades, and they're pretty darned excited about that. BTW, I'm doing a complete write-up for every game. The contributors are adding anecdotes and the like, which are fun and don't take long at all. If someone doesn't want to contribute because they want to get paid, I certainly understand that. No harm, no foul, just a fun book about a niche subject, the SNES. Trust me, I won't get rich off of this.

Why not release the book digitally for free then? I mean if it's just for fun, surely you don't expect to be paid either, right? I think you need to take a step back and think about the double standard you are practicing here. What you're saying is that the hundreds of pieces you are asking people to contribute have no value but your contributions should be rewarded with some form of compensation. I'm not saying somebody writing 350 words is equivalent to all of the writing you will be doing, but it's also not completely without value. How about stepping up and taking your profits and plowing that into providing copies of the book for free to the contributors?

[8bitgamer]

Why not release the book digitally for free then? I mean if it's just for fun, surely you don't expect to be paid either, right? I think you need to take a step back and think about the double standard you are practicing here. What you're saying is that the hundreds of pieces you are asking people to contribute have no value but your contributions should be rewarded with some form of compensation. I'm not saying somebody writing 350 words is equivalent to all of the writing you will be doing, but it's also not completely without value. How about stepping up and taking your profits and plowing that into providing copies of the book for free to the contributors?

What I mean by "fun" is that the book is intended to entertain. It's work to write it. Fun work, but work nevertheless. There are many contributors. If I paid them it would reduce my royalties to almost nothing, and I can't afford to do that. I can't give away digital copies either, because the publisher is in charge of digital copies. People are writing entries because they want to, and in return, instead of money, they are getting exposure, publication credits, satisfaction, their name in print, something to show their family, something to be proud of, their stories written for future generations. And they are gladly doing so. People have contributed to anthologies, reference books and the like forever without compensation, so there's no precedent here. If that's not to your liking, so be it.

[Bojay1997]

What I mean by "fun" is that the book is intended to entertain. It's work to write it. Fun work, but work nevertheless. There are many contributors. If I paid them it would reduce my royalties to almost nothing, and I can't afford to do that. I can't give away digital copies either, because the publisher is in charge of digital copies. People are writing entries because they want to, and in return, instead of money, they are getting exposure, publication credits, satisfaction, their name in print, something to show their family, something to be proud of, their stories written for future generations. And they are gladly doing so. People have contributed to anthologies, reference books and the like forever without compensation, so there's no precedent here. If that's not to your liking, so be it.

Actually, publishers (real publishers, not self-publishing companies or vanity publishers) pay contributors to anthologies and reference books. Sometimes it's a small amount, but there are legal reasons why they do so. At a minimum, they offer them a copy of the work they are contributing to and other tangible consideration. Your argument that they will have something to show their family is moot because you are refusing to provide them with a free copy and frankly, the value of having 350 words in print in a book few outside of the contributors will ever read doesn't have much value. My issue with what you are doing is that this is not a small amount of the work of others you are including in your book. It appears that for every game on the SNES released in the US (over 700 I believe), you are going to use a 250-350 word contribution which is a massive amount of third party contribution for which you somehow believe it's ok not to compensate these contributors. You have also in this thread essentially downplayed the value of their contributions while placing a heavy emphasis on the fact that you need to be paid. I agree that you need to be paid, but if you can't make the economics work to compensate the people whose work you want to include in the book, you need to either do that work yourself or exclude it altogether. Just like you wouldn't want to work for free, you shouldn't expect hundreds of other people to do so in an effort to create something that only you and your publisher will benefit from.

[8bitgamer]

Actually, publishers (real publishers, not self-publishing companies or vanity publishers) pay contributors to anthologies and reference books. Sometimes it's a small amount, but there are legal reasons why they do so. At a minimum, they offer them a copy of the work they are contributing to and other tangible consideration. Your argument that they will have something to show their family is moot because you are refusing to provide them with a free copy and frankly, the value of having 350 words in print in a book few outside of the contributors will ever read doesn't have much value. My issue with what you are doing is that this is not a small amount of the work of others you are including in your book. It appears that for every game on the SNES released in the US (over 700 I believe), you are going to use a 250-350 word contribution which is a massive amount of third party contribution for which you somehow believe it's ok not to compensate these contributors. You have also in this thread essentially downplayed the value of their contributions while placing a heavy emphasis on the fact that you need to be paid. I agree that you need to be paid, but if you can't make the economics work to compensate the people whose work you want to include in the book, you need to either do that work yourself or exclude it altogether. Just like you wouldn't want to work for free, you shouldn't expect hundreds of other people to do so in an effort to create something that only you and your publisher will benefit from.

Again, all the contributors are happy with the arrangement, and no one is holding a gun to their head. People who didn't want to participate politely declined. If it makes you feel any better, many of the contributors are reviewers, website hosts, YouTubers, etc. and will receive a review copy of the book anyway. Signing off now, gotta get back to work. Regardless, despite the disagreement, civil discourse is always appreciated. Peace out.