Work For Hire

Depending on who you talk to, the three words that I used for today’s title are the most repugnant in the English language when put together. You might sooner expect some authors to give consideration to self mutilation before they would seriously consider work for hire.

 Because there are those people who don’t understand the phrase, allow me to clarify. Work for hire is writing for someone else. By that I mean you are paid, but the copyright and everything associated with the work is somebody else’s intellectual property. Your words, their property. Horrible notion, right? I mean, come on, they keep the copyright, the licensing options for movies, toys, trading cares, et al. Why would anybody every consider doing work for hire?

Well, let’s see. First there’s the money thing. A lot of times a writer isn’t going to get much by way or royalties and in some cases they won’t get any royalties, so to sweeten the pot, the publishers often offer a much larger up front advance than they would normally. Five thousand for a novel isn’t great, but it’s reasonable in a lot of cases. On the other hand, a work for hire property might ask for the same length novel and offer 25,000 dollars instead. Not exactly chump change, if you see my point. I’ve heard rumors of a few properties that do not, in fact, offer any royalties but instead offer 125-250 thousand dollar advances in exchange. If those rumors are true, and if the editors are listening, I’m there for you in a heartbeat. And I will move heaven and earth to make every deadline. No, seriously, call me.

Next up is exposure. Listen, you’ve probably seen me rant a few times about how for the love magazines don’t really get you much exposure. I’m not wrong. On the other hand, writing a Star Trek/Star Wars/Super Hero Flavor of the month novel will get you noticed. It might not change your life, but if you do manage one of the bigger tie in titles and you do it right and make a story people remember, there’s every reason to believe that at least a few of those readers will remember your name and maybe give you a test run outside of the playground you’ve just played in. It can also lead to OTHER media tie ins and those can do the same thing again. An astonishing number of mid list authors have written tie in novels and a good number of them would probably agree with what I’ve just told you.

Cash flow.

Seriously, cash flow should be a consideration. In this day and age the market for original fiction can be fickle. You’ve got seven novels written, three of them under consideration, two of them sold and two more being looked at by a few more people at the publishing house before you get an answer. Awesome, great news and congratulations. None of them are paying you a damned thing yet. Might even be a few months before any of that scratch comes your way. So, you can live on your minimal savings, or you can use your brain and try to get extra money. Again, I work a day job, but not every writer is in the same boat as me and you’d be amazed at exactly how many professional writers I’ve run across who have told me of their financial woes brought on by slow publishers, dwindling sales figures or gaps in the payment schedules for their books. It is very, very rare to be anything less than a best seller and not run across financial woes a few times in your career. Cash flow is a lovely thing.

But Jim, you’re still giving up your copyright! Yes, you are. But in the case of media tie ins, somebody else already owns that intellectual property and they have absolutely no desire to let you write whatever you want in the worlds they’ve created for fun and profit. It’s called fan fiction in most cases, and a shocking amount of that stuff deals with unnatural sexual acts. Hey, more power to the people having fun with that, but if you’re trying to sell it, be prepared to get nuked in a court of law. Again, in the case of a franchise like Star Wars, you may rest assured that the owners of that particular property have a lot more at stake than you do.

My small digression du jour (like you didn’t know one was coming): On fan fiction. That story where Luke and Han get together and explore their latent sexual frustrations with each other while Leia is babysitting? It’s fine. But the moment you print it, send it to the internet or try to sell it in a fanzine (Or give it to the fanzine for the love) you are in violation of the Copyright laws of the United States and a lot of other countries. From a professional standpoint, you have just broken a cardinal rule of publishing. You may as well start writing under an assumed name immediately if you’ve already put that stuff up with your name on it, because I can pretty much guarantee you that your writing career is over. Maybe a lot of smaller presses will forgive that sort of thing, but by and large the owner of the copyright and the publisher who’s paid very dearly for the privilege of printing those licensed stories legitimately are very likely to see you in court, and you may rest assured that their lawyers will eat your lawyers for breakfast. If you’re very lucky the worst will be your financial ruin. Seriously. Don’t play in that field if you want to get published for money.

In the long run there are positives and negatives. I have done work for hire before and I very likely will again and without hesitation. It may not be everyone’s cup of proverbial tea, but I enjoy the change of pace now and then and I’ve collected a few new fans every time I’ve written a work for a licensed property. Of course, I’m careful about what I pick, too. I don’t see me successfully writing a Legally Blond romantic comedy. Know your limitations.

James A. Moore