thread: 2012-03-03 : Ben Lehman: Caveat Scriba: Margret Weis Productions
On 2012-03-04, Malcolm wrote:
1) I think it's a good idea to make a public statement about nonpayment in cases where payment runs late and you either cannot negotiate a pay schedule, or the company that owes you money has broken a pay schedule negotiated to resolve the problem. Then you state the facts, stand behind what you said, and renegotiate aggressively. As a result of using this method I have never, ever been stiffed across over a decade of freelancing.
There is nothing wrong with airing grievances in public. The post is simply the stupidest possible way to do it for everyone with a real stake in it. But not for Ben Lehman.
2) There's no blacklist. Individual companies can choose not to hire you. This post here, it's probably inspired a couple of companies not to hire the Anonymous Freelancers again simply because they allowed the post to happen. Me, I've threatened to quit, argued with my bosses in public venues and told the head of one of the largest publishers from the last decade to go fuck himself. I'm working on a contract right now.
3) Many people who talk about freelancing know nothing about it. This includes most of the indie community and the vast majority of prolific posters who worked for zine-level outfits rocking penny a word bullshit.
4) Moral comparisons between working as a freelancer and indie self-publishing are illustrative, since they implicitly assume that all workers are trivial appendages of the creator. I guess that's why wheedling free work out of people or paying below the threshold of a living wage for time works for indie-brand folks.
5) Basically, since Ben's post lacks sourcing, will probably damage the people he purports to help, and brings in a side message expressing the usual, fashionable contempt for creative workers, the only coherent thing being accomplished by it is . . . marketing.
Y'all should probably think twice about responding to this kind of marketing.
