There’s a lot of ways to collaborate and many different perspectives. I’ll keep things brief up here because this is probably my longest post and I’ve linked to hours of videos that I’ve watched to help me get to the level of understanding that I’m at. A lot of this is very general so use what you find helpful and lose the rest.

But before all that, this post is brought to you by Scientific Barbarian #6 and Caverns of the Dead God! Not actually sponsored in any way, but I have a short article inside SciBar6 titled Mutation Inclinations. I’ve created a rather elegant way to tie together the 0-level cosmetic mutations of mutants, manimals, and plantients into the mutations that they gain at first level.

For Caverns of the Dead God, I’m writing an encounter for it as they hit the 6.5k stretch goal! I’m still brainstorming ideas on this one, but it’s gonna be a good one. I’ll try not to TPK everyone before the adventure begins!

Types of Collaboration

Peer to Peer/ Democratic Experiences

The Gongfarmer’s Almanac is a community organized, completely volunteer organization. It does have a central leader who passes the torch when they want to step down and can find a suitable volunteer to replace them. Other roles include organizers, editors, layout artists, cartographers, illustrators, and (of course) writers. Sometimes things struggle if there aren’t enough volunteers for certain roles and there’s always more writers than anything else.

• Pros: Can produce awesome (and sometimes not as awesome) content and give people the opportunity to take their first step into publishing/self-publishing since they can get support.

• Cons: There’s never enough volunteers for anything except writing. This leads to other folks to be asked to volunteer for extra work and can lead to delays. If tasks don’t get effectively delegated, then progress can halt.

• Opportunities: Could be improved by additional training and outreach for non-writing roles.

QuaranZine/ QuaranZine2 was a completely volunteer project where folks created some zines that were released as pay-what-you-want. This was created in early 2020 with the goal of raising money to donate to COVID-19 relief funds. There was an attempt at a third, more thematically-focused volume, but it fell apart due to creative differences and team members moving onto other projects.

• Pros: It raised money and actually helped people! It also connected creative people. I still work with Boson Au, who wrote a funnel in QZ2 and is a really talented artist! I also gained more layout skills and did my first editing on the funnels that other writers created for QZ2.

• Cons: Without a “creative director”, things fell apart once we tried to focus on a theme. The third volume was conceived as having a pandemic-inspired theme with 2 custom classes, a bunch of gameable setting info, and an adventure or two. However, I wanted to have more of a Bloodborne-inspired setting and the other main proponent of the overall theme wanted something more like a zombie-epidemic. Neither of us were particularly interested in the other’s idea and other previous collaborators were going onto other projects so things fell apart.

• Opportunities: The class I prototyped for Volume 3 was eventually revised into the Jungle Juice Drinker that appears in Marvels of the Multiverse. Save your unused ideas and recycle them later. A creative lead and design goals are really important for any project with a focused-themed.

For some lessons on leading projects and teams, here’s a video that might be useful to folks:

Commissioning Others

When self-publishing, you wear a lot of hats. You end up hiring people to do what you can’t do, don’t have time for, or just don’t enjoy doing yourself. Remember that you are building relationships with the people that you work with. Pay them fairly, send them contributor copies, and make sure that they feel heard. If you treat people right, word gets around that you’re a good person to work with. And you’ll gain business partners and friends who are eager to work with you time and time again.

Similarly, do a little research on folks before you reach out to them. Make sure that they aren’t saying some horrendous nonsense online. You don’t want to accidentally get partnered with someone who is going to cause unwanted controversy about the project or will otherwise drag it down.

Hiring Artists: It can feel scary but is fairly simple. You need to find an artist. There’s no one way to do that. You can look on Reddit, Discord, Twitter, Bluesky, Instragram, or even your local college for art students. Another excellent way to find artist is simply by looking at the credits of a book that you like and googling artist. They’ll usually have a personal website or Instagram where you can find contact info. Email someone, ask them about their availability and timeline for completion, rates for b&w or color images, etc. Tell them how many pieces you would ideally need, what size they’ll be and a general theme (ex: I want 5 b&w pieces, each about quarter-page size, for a weird-west themed project). They’ll get back to you with commission rates, when they’ll be available to begin word, etc.

Try to just say “yes” to their commission rates. If they aren’t in your budget, or you won’t have enough money until after a Kickstarter funds, then be honest about that. You could also offer a percentage (in perpetuity) of DriveThruRPG sales if you can’t meet their actual commission rate. Most artists will ask for 1/2 the payment prior to work and 1/2 upon completion. Offering a contributor copy is also something you should do (minimally digital but physical copies are also preferable).

During negotiation, you’ll also want to ask any questions you have about usage and rights to the art. Do you own that image for use in reprints and compilations (its almost always yes)? If you want to, can you stick it on a t-shirt to sell? Can the cover art be turned into a poster, but only created for sending to Kickstarter backers? How many revisions can you ask for before the artist says they’re done?

Then you’ll need to give them a detailed description of what you want out of each image. If possible, I like to be into layout (so editing has hopefully happened already) so that I can take a screenshot of the exact space that the illustrations will be given. If not, say something like “quarter-page; mostly horizontal” for the size. Here’s a couple videos on this subject.

Hiring Writers: Find folks you like! This process is very similar to hiring an artist. Once you find them, send out an email with a general description of the project and how you’d like to collaborate (ex: I’m working on a setting that is like Ducktales meets Jem and will use the DCC as a system-chassis. I really like NAME OF YOUR PREVIOUS WORK and would love to get you to write a 3-4k work adventure. Let me know if that sounds interesting and I’ll tell you more and share my current draft of the project, plus talk about rates. If you feel like you’d like to write something other than an adventure then let me know because I’m excited to collaborate.”)

In this situation, you’re likely to offer a commission rate instead of them asking for one. Try to aim for .10c/word. I’ve been paid 3c/word (actually, I’ve been promised to be paid that upon publication so I haven’t been paid yet) and paid 15c/word. Discuss how many revisions they’ll do before they step away, discuss playtesting responsibilities, how closely they need to write in accordance with the system (or if you/ your editor can take care of that), deadlines, if their are bonuses if your Kickstarter does really well, if they get revenue share from DriveThruRPG sales, etc. Plus, make sure you agree on when payment is received (please make it upon your receiving their work, not when publication occurs).

Layout & Editing: I suggest looking at the credits in books that you like. Reach out to those people or ask others for their contact info. This is how I found an editor and I use him on basically every project. And you need to use an editor on anything that you want to look like it has actual polish to it. I handle my own layout so I can’t offer assistance on finding layout folks. You could possibly hire me! You could also go pick up Affinity Publisher and watch YouTube videos to learn how to do it. Most folks that do TTRPG layout are very much self taught.

Whichever way you look at it: Concrete design goals and clear direction is hugely helpful. If you establish clear goals, then you’re going to get results closer to what you actually want.

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Freelancing for Others

As above, do research on potential business partners. Make sure they aren’t coming from one of the extra-weird, racist, or otherwise hateful parts of the TTRPG space. You don’t need your name associated with that. If you find out halfway through a project that you made a mistake in this regard, do what you think is best. I’d personally suggest dropping out of a project while being as professional as possible.

Writing: This is primarily the inverse of most of the advice on hiring writers. However, please do your best to stick to your deadlines and word count. If you are not going to be able to do either of those, then communicate that as soon as you know it. If you need an extension, hopefully there’s wiggle room before the project gets delayed. If you blew through (or can’t meet) your word count, then ask how that will effect things. If you were hired to write 5k words, that doesn’t mean you’ll get paid extra for writing 10k words. It just that they’ll going to chop your work up and a lot will be left on the cutting room floor.

Layout: Agree upon an “example of work”. That may be something you’ve previously done or another publications style. Talk about specifics like vibe of fonts, their feelings on whitespace, etc. Do a few pages and send out to get feedback. Iterate on that so you can get a good product.

Project Management: You need to determine if its a project that you are interested in, what the “boss” has as goals, what roles they need filled/need help with, and what they expect of you. Needs will arise that you will not have planned for. You wear almost as many hats as when you’re the writer and doing your own Kickstarter, except that you’re not the writer and you’re not the boss. You can give your opinion to your “boss” but it’s not your place to convince them that your way is the right way. Your place is to help support their plan in the best way possible.

Side Note: Check out this completely different substack series on project management by Jar of Eyes.

You’ll do things like find 3 artists that they might like and who are in their budget. Who is doing the art direction and who is making sure that different deadlines are being met? Find out how often they want a KS update and social media promotion. Can you connect them with podcasts or twitch streams for promotion? Can you make the graphics for their KS campaign page? How will printing be done? Who can handle fulfillment and distribution? What do they want to learn how to do and what are they happy to let someone else do?

You need to track your hours spent on this. Are you getting paid hourly or a set amount? Or will you get paid a percentage based on how well the project does? Do you get a cut of the Kickstarter and/or DriveThruRPG sales? Do you want a cut of sales from non-automated royalty systems (like itch.io)? Is this forever or just a limited time? Will the payments be monthly, quarterly, annually, etc? Penalties for non-payment? If you’re getting this involved in a project, I definitely believe that need a contract to that answers all these details.

Summary

Check out the videos if and when you have a chance. There’s no one way to do any of this. While there are best practices, the best way is the way that works for you and you on that specific project. Hopefully all this will help you figure out what that is, but ultimately it’s going to be some trial-and-error. No one and no project is perfect. Mistakes are okay. Just keep learning and keep improving.

I covered a whole lot in this post! Let me know if there’s anything that needs further clarification or if a particular subject just needs a really deep dive and its own article.

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