I dont want to stop your enthusiasm, but you are practically offering your word and the possibility of some economic success in the far future to atract artist to do what seems for like at least 1-2 Months worth of full-employment. And infinit Revisions. And no startup capital. And a lot of "if" situations. I am not shure how to see this, you have of course a lot of trust into your project but, I guess its hard to find other people putting in the same amont of Heart and energy like yourself.
Consider that I'm both a cartographer and a publisher, I even hire artists as I need them. From a cartographer's point of view, if I am given a commission to create a map for someone's commercial project, I expect to be paid at completion of the job, not on some unforseen future time when the maps might help you provide yourself an income - that may never happen. Circumstances might occur to prevent you from publishing altogether, then what of the unpaid artists?
Also, I've been paid as much as $400 to create one map, and even at such a large dollar amount, I still share copyright ownership with the publisher allowing me to post the map in my gallery, and here at the CG. I wouldn't give up that right for any amount of money.
I too am a small RPG publisher, who is currently co-publishing a setting, adventures, and supplements for my Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting for PFRPG, as an imprint under Rite Publishing. Now a days, I have no out of pocket expense. Through Rite Publishing, I develop what eventually becomes a Kickstarter project - once I know the costs for cover art, interior art, writing and editing are, I create a budget of the amount of money required to fully fund the project, then I create free preview material which is then placed into Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, or an inhouse patronage system where individuals commit $25, $60, or $99 to become patrons who get rights to certain previously created products (for free) and development participation in said project.
Like you, I am so low in budget that I've basically paid for all my cover art needs and interior art with my tax return - all of it, one year. But the artists were paid immediately upon completion of work. I would never expect an artist to not get paid for work done. And know that had I screwed over an artist in this way, they will go public with it, which would hurt your chances at acquiring future artists.
As a small publisher, I do as much work myself as possible to keep costs down, including all my needed cartography, project development, page layout, some of the writing. I actually hire out writers that have some fan base reputation to help sell the product (Jonathan McAnulty and T. H. Gulliver). I use Rite Publishing's editors (Dave Paul). When I need art, I work with 5 different artists for specific styles that each have for varying illlustration needs. 2 are primarily cover artists, 2 are primarily interior artists, and one is my primary monster artist.
If you want to look like a professional, then you need to be a professional and pay for your art at completion of work. No one should have to wait to whenever you might possibly earn a profit, as that may never happen. The RPG industry is generally a low profit generating industry, but that doesn't mean artists shouldn't get paid right away. Sometimes we suffer monetarily to promote the things we love.
Last edited by Gamerprinter; 03-16-2012 at 10:10 PM.
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As put in the original post I don't have any qualms about the artist posting it in their portfolios and such. I intend to use the map both online and in print and as soon as someone does that it is pretty much pointless to put restrictions on most things like that...Originally Posted by Gamerprinter
The concern I have is that I don't like dividing ownership of the full product. It's a major issue all over the place and it has caused tons of good things to be ruined or not seen.
Well you really aren't going to get any better than giving you an option to buying the copyright for a pre-agreed price later, and even that is going to be a hard sell and will cost more. If the project does well and you get the money, you can pay the arranged fee and the copyright is yours. If not, then it doesn't really matter that you don't hold the copyright to the map as the whole thing failed.
I still wouldn't work under those conditions, even if I were getting a royalty until the option were exercised, but you might at least have a chance of convincing someone.
You're right. It is my word and possibility.
I did a quick search to check what people on this forum are saying about prices. It seems that the rates are either hourly which I think is not acceptable. I never have and I never will because as some one who knows a bit about being an artist i know that the speed changes based on a number of things per person and is in no way fair to employer, but a flat rate of between $50 and $500 was mentioned with a majority of people seemingly saying between $50 and $100 per map depending on various things.
So...
Size, I don't care about a "physical" copy of the maps as such what is really important as far as size is a scanner and knowing the conversion between dpis (300dpi is standard print, so you can scan in an image at higher dpi and then convert for bigger sizes), or working completely PC based.
I don't quite know what is meant by detail. Mountains, Rivers, forests, major cities/places looking unique, smaller "towns" on the map, but not needing to look unique.
Scale... This is a bit tricky... I'd like a map for the full world. obviously the level of detail would have to be fairly basic as the planet is the same size or nearly the same as Earth. And then i'd also like a map for the continents so the scale would change based on how big the continents are.
Those maps would then probably be altered as would be needed for use as political maps and other such simple things, but also would need to have 4 (or more) variations with changes to city placements and such.
Once the initial set is done though I don't see very much work to be done after that as it would be more or less just adding or removing or modifying unique places only important to keep same artist for style reasons. After that I need several city maps... it's not important that the city maps be consistent stylistically for in universe reasons so I'm not really worried about them
At minimum that sounds like 8 maps and even at the smallest number would be $400. I don't see how I can afford that, much less, if you increase the amount per map.
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