I\u2019m not the first person to write this, and I certainly won\u2019t be the last\u2026<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, it must needs be said.<\/p>\n
Artists. STOP UNDERVALUING YOUR WORK!<\/p>\n
Ok, so we\u2019ve all seen the \u201cFor exposure\u201d twitter accounts, and heard the \u201cArtist dies of exposure\u201d jokes. On the other hand we\u2019ve also heard innumerable \u201cYou charge too much!\u201d and rants about \u201cuppity artists who should just be doing it for the love of the art.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lets be clear. This is not just about you, the individual artist and creator. This is a moral imperative, and effects everybody else that would like to make a living, or even just a few extra bucks, with their art.<\/p>\n
Every time you devalue your own art, you create a marketplace of false values, that brings down the work of everybody else in that market.<\/p>\n
But first, lets talk work, and the value there of.<\/p>\n
Anybody who has spent any amount of time looking for work, particularly starting out, has become aware of the difference in pay between trained\/experienced positions, and untrained or \u201centry\u201d level positions. You can get a job with no experience needed\u2026 but the hours will probably suck, and you\u2019ll be making minimum wage. If you\u2019re lucky, and you\u2019ve got an applicable degree under your belt, you\u2019re likely to skip the first couple years worth of pay raises and get in at something a little closer to a living wage. If you\u2019ve got experience, you might even be able to do better than that.<\/p>\n
To throw some numbers at that, lets take a hypothetical \u201caverage American restaurant.\u201d The average server\/host position averages out to about 21k\/year, or about $10\/hr. (I\u2019m not sourcing these because these numbers are all VERY rough, and they are largely for demonstration) The average line cook, somebody with some basic training and or expereince, jumps up a couple bucks an hour to about $12\/hr, or about 25k\/year. A chef, on the other hand, which is to say somebody who went to culinary school or has a much more significant amount of professional kitchen experience, is likely to make closer to 34k\/year, or about 16\/hour.
\nThere\u2019s more to it than that, though. That waiter that\u2019s fresh off the street, or even the line cook, is not likely to get much, if anything, in the way of benefits. The chef, however, is expected to have at least a minimum level of compensated insurance, etcetera, so their actual hourly work value is significantly higher.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the point of all this?<\/p>\n
Well, it\u2019s simple. Not only should you get paid for the work you do, but your pay should reflect the preparation, experience, and training that has already gone into it. Yes, the market has a say on how things are valued. That\u2019s why the line cook at a fancy steak house, might just make as much or more than the head chef at a chain bistro.<\/p>\n
Nobody in this imaginary average restaurant, however much they love what they are doing, are doing it for free, nor should they. It\u2019s work, even if you love it. It takes training, and experience, to get good at it, no matter how transient or unnecessary it is. So they are compensated. (I\u2019m not going to get into the horrid way we treat workers in this country, so lets just leave it at, even this is a MINIMAL compensation and should be addressed as well.)<\/p>\n
So lets talk about you, the artist, and your commission. More importantly, lets talk about what you SHOULD be charging for it.<\/p>\n
Now, many of you here, have probably seen my art (over at Hey Fox) and know that my first love is not visual arts. That said, I\u2019m going to come at this from a bit more of a reductive, business side of things. There\u2019s going to be some stuff in here that might seem a bit ridiculous, and some that is definitely going to make you a bit uncomfortable, but please, trust me, and keep reading.<\/p>\n
This is important.<\/p>\n
This is on you.<\/p>\n
We all need your help.<\/p>\n
You need to value your art, your product, correctly.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to use some more numbers here, based off of some averages, and some broad sweeps. What applies to you specifically will, in all likelihood, be different. That said, I stand by the overall arguments, and believe that you can plug in the numbers that are appropriate to you and your location.<\/p>\n
Like we used a fictional restaurant in the example above, I\u2019m going to use a fictional artist here. Somebody who does commissioned works, a variate of subject and content, as requested by their customer. Although I\u2019m mostly going to use terms around drawing\/painting and visual arts, remember that these apply to any creative endeavor, be it musical, sculptural, knitting a blanket, writing a story, or whatever.<\/p>\n
Our artist has a commissioned work. It\u2019s a full color, single character portrait. It takes them about 5 hours to sketch it out, line it, ink it, and color it. In the end they have a fine digital image, that they have printed up on nice stock and shipped to their commissioner. A good days work, all around. They charge a very modest $50 for all this work.<\/p>\n
At first glance, this might not seem to be too far out of reason. A bit expensive even, compared to some commissions that go around. Heck, that\u2019s like\u2026 $10\/hour even, right?<\/p>\n
Not really.<\/p>\n
5 hours of work on the final product doesn\u2019t take into account large chunks of the time spent on this project, not to mention the hidden costs of a work like this, even one that\u2019s all digital!<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a more realistic look at goes into a commission like this:
\n– back-and forth communications with the commissioner, getting to understand the subject matter, what they want.
\n– gathering references, doing whatever other research is required for this subject.
\n– rough sketches that are sent to the commissioner and scrapped as they pin down exactly what they\u2019re looking for.
\n– printing, packing, and shipping the final product.<\/p>\n
Time wise, now we\u2019re closer to this:
\n5 hrs – dedicated art time
\n2 hrs – negotiations\/communications
\n1 hrs – research\/prep
\n2 hrs – roughs\/sketches
\n1 hrs – printing\/shipping\/cleanup<\/p>\n
Even if we consider that, working largely digitally, the negotiation time and printing time can be spent working on other projects, and cutting those in half to reflect that efficiency of work, we\u2019re now looking at a more realistic time commitment around 9-1\/2 hours.
\nNow that $50 price tag is closer to $5.25\/hour. That\u2019s like half of minimum wage.
\nThat sucks!
\nAnd that\u2019s assuming that the artist lives in a place where that \u201caverage\u201d minimum wage applies. If they happen to live in a big city, they\u2019re probably closer to 1\/3 of minimum wage than just half!<\/p>\n
So what should they be charging?
\nPart of that, if you\u2019ll recall our restaurant example, has to do with their experience and the quality of their work. This is where that whole \u201cmarket forces\u201d comes into it\u2026 but remember, those are things that increase the value of the work, not decrease it.<\/p>\n
Lets say, this is a self-taught artist, and their art is fairly average in offering. The \u201cminimum wage\u201d worker here. Just to make it simple we\u2019ll just use $10\/hour. About average. That means this full color work, printed and shipped, should have gone for more like $95.
\nIf the artist is experienced, gone to art school for example, or has built an audience, they should be charging something much closer to $12 or $15\/hour. And if they are very eperienced, have an extensive audience, etcetera\u2026 Then they should be much closer to $20 or $25\/hour!
\nWow! (I hear some straw-man moan) But that\u2019s so much more than the hypothetical chef. Why is an artist\u2019s time so much more expensive!?
\nRemember those benefits? See, the artist, working for $20\/hour isn\u2019t getting health care, or paid time off, or anything like that. All of that comes out of whatever money they make, cash in hand. The \u201ctake home pay\u201d might look like it\u2019s much more, but in the end, it tends to actually be less than that step up in pay for the worker working for a company.<\/p>\n
So lets take a look at those rates now.
\nCasual – about $95
\nExpereinced\/building – about $140
\nProfessional – $190 – $240<\/p>\n
Sounds like a lot! That\u2019s a really big difference!<\/p>\n
But wait\u2026 There\u2019s more!<\/p>\n
See, all we\u2019ve actually taken into account here, is the hours spent at work. That\u2019s just the time. There\u2019s a lot more that goes into making something than that!
\nIf you\u2019re working in traditional media, there is all of the paper, paints, pencils, inks, etcetera that you use.
\nYarn, cloth, clay, or whatever you spend!
\nEven when working entirety digitally, there is the computer you\u2019re using, specialized hardware, and software!
\nAll of these things are costs on the work you are doing!<\/p>\n
Now lets pretend that you\u2019re making art, this way, full time. 40 hours a week, 52 weeks per year. Figure you\u2019re going to have to replace your whole computer rig about once every 4 years. You don\u2019t do this all at once, but piece by piece, when and where you can.
\nLets say our artist has a drawing tablet (about $1000) a workable computer rig (another 1000) and some professional art and editing software (about $500\/year). That gives us a total cost of about 4k\/4 years.
\nTherefore, there\u2019s another thousand dollars of materials costs that have to be integrated. If they\u2019re booked solid, that\u2019s only another $0.50\/hour\u2026 But lets be honest, they\u2019re probably not\u2026 So at minimum, you want to add another buck an hour there, so pump all those estimates by another $10 or so.<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s the takeaway from all this?<\/p>\n
Our imaginary artist should have charged $150 for their $50 commission?<\/p>\n
No. That\u2019s not actually it. They likely did undercharge, and significantly, but there are a lot of other factors. Like I said, some mean that they should charge more, but some mitigate the other way. Plenty of artist friends of mine have lamented something to the effect of \u201cIf I charge what it\u2019s worth, they wouldn\u2019t pay it,\u201d \u201cWell, it was for a friend and I didn\u2019t want to charge them so much,\u201d or the like. And while you are building your audience, or making exceptions for a friend, or whatever, there is good reason to charge less.
\nWhat you should always do in these cases, however, is to make sure that you are clear HOW MUCH you have discounted the work. I\u2019m not saying that you should give somebody a gift and follow it up with \u201cYou know, that\u2019s liek a hundred bucks worth of work\u2026\u201d But what I do mean is that your commission sheets, your negotiated prices, and the like, should include \u201cThis is what the value of this work is, but for X reason (sale, exception for you, whatever) I\u2019m going to mark it down by this much.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are always mitigating factors. \u201cI don\u2019t want to make a living at this, just make a few bucks for con\u201d or whatever. People who are still learning and aren\u2019t ready to charge full price. Whatever. Just remember that you MUST be aware of what other artists in your market are doing. Every time you undercharge for your time, and your effort, and your experience, materials, etcetera\u2026 You are hurting their chances of being able to make a living doing what they love. It\u2019s all good to be kind, but be AWARE of the value of what you are giving away, and recognize it. Make sure your commissioners and customers do as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m not the first person to write this, and I certainly won\u2019t be the last\u2026 Nonetheless, it must needs be said. Artists. STOP UNDERVALUING YOUR WORK! Ok, so we\u2019ve all seen the \u201cFor exposure\u201d twitter accounts, and heard the \u201cArtist dies of exposure\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161,"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pear-comics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}