Heya, so given some recent stuff I’ve been seeing, I wanted make a post for fan creators about some of the major red flags to watch out for in any kind of paid fandom work, be it commissions, paid zines or similar projects.
Not wanting to discuss payment up front, reducing payment from what they initially offered, or asking you to commit to a firm price/payment while not giving you enough information to accurately gauge the amount of work required.
Undermining you, trying to push your prices lower, asking you to do more work than you originally committed to, begging you for things, whining about how your work isn’t worth that much or that they don’t have that much money, acting as if your prices are insane/unreasonable.
Asking you for unpaid “trial work”.
Refusing to answer questions, deflecting questions, getting upset when you ask questions, giving you the run around or long-winded paragraphs that do not actually answer your questions.
Not clearly defining what they expect from you, or changing their expectations after you’ve committed without renegotiating over payment / giving you the option to refuse the change in expectations without repercussions / guilt.
Getting upset when you don’t meet expectations they didn’t communicate to you. (ie, telling you to figure something out/the you have freedom and then being upset that they don’t like how you did it, giving vague criticism, expecting you to know things you weren’t told)
Constantly changing the story, refusing to address concerns/complaints and deflecting instead.
Guilt tripping of any kind, including devaluing your work or (”this means a lot to me, so won’t you please…” “I really need you to do…” “You’re being selfish by not…” “But this is actually not that hard…” “It’s just one extra thing…”)
Refusing to respect work-life balance, constantly demanding attention/your full focus even when you’ve already clearly laid out the timeline for your work.
Talking down to you. Condescending tone, talking to you as if you’re a child, (“I’m just disappointed in you for…”), telling you what you experienced/felt (”You don’t really feel like that, you’re not really struggling, you don’t mean that, you may’ve read (something they said) but actually what I said was (a twisted version of what they said)”).
(For projects) Vague statements and hand waving. Any well run project should have clearly defined income, payments, stages of production, division of work, goals for the project, rules for participants, and chains of communication.
(For projects) The leader(s) of a project don’t list/share their normal social media info/contact. They have no / to very little follow, are a brand new or inactive account, or otherwise don’t have a strong presence outside of the project.
(For projects) Asking for lots of personal details, asking you to sign an NDA, asking for an address or ID (some 18+ zines may ask for an ID with everything but the DOB blocked out, if it’s a rather large/popular zine, this may be reasonable, but be careful).
(For projects) Isolation of team members / hiding information. Staff on a project should all be able to talk to each other clearly and openly. Expectations/rules/criteria/payment should all be clearly laid out from the start before you agree to anything.
(For projects) Having very lofty expectations for the project, making big promises, but with no or minimal solid prior experience to justify said expectations and promises. Ask for specifics on projects they’ve been in charge of previously, and see how those turned out.
tl:dr
Be careful about paid fandom work, make sure that you feel treated with respect at all times, that you’re being paid for all of your work, and that you have clear expectations and communication at all times. If someone is being shifty, changing their story, not communicating expectations or making you uncomfortable, walk away politely. If a person gets angry at you for refusing to work with them or tries to pressure you after you said no, then know you absolutely made the right call to not work with them.
Also, specifically for zines, here’s an excellent link about red & yellow flags for zines:
https://zineflags.carrd.co/
