Freelancing: How to Live the Dream and Avoid the Nightmare

[Music] everyone so today I'm gonna be talking to you about freelancing the way I do my talks is I prepare my slides I sort of practice them a bit but I don't actually create a script so I may go off script or who knows or I may forget what I'm talking about and it'll be a disaster so we'll see how it goes so the title of my talk is freelancing how to live the dream and avoid the nightmare which is some terms I'm going to be interrogating and looking into a bit throughout my name is Greg Buchanan and I'm a writer so some of my slides and some of what I'm going to say will be slightly from the perspective of game writing so your mileage may vary in other disciplines but as far as possible I've tried to make it agnostic to to those concerns and make it broader drawing on several friends of mine who are in other disciplines as well to see about applicability so first Who am I some of you may know who I am so if you may not as just as independent next to my name so what have I done so this is why I'm talking

freelancing so I've written over 20 games between 2015 to 2019 the majority of which will work for hire freelance contracts across in the triple-a vr mobile like all the different types of writing and projects you could do so one of my earliest ones was a political game called paper brexit which was just by myself one of the more high-profile things I worked on was the Google great and 30 hour a story campaign for no man sky Atlas Rises so this was like a big story that was added to the game after release and I did like a huge narrative to it and several other updates and it also for example worked on an additional writing support for games such as Metro Exodus - quite recently so lots of different games and you can find out more online about my work before that I also had some backgrounds in academia I did a PhD in identification and ethics in novels and video games I've been in

various lists like things like Forbes 30 under 30 this year just just you know I was about two weeks off 10:30 which I now AM so snuck in and a another list and I'm also now an author quite recently as well so my debut novel sixteen horses was recently bought in a deal by Macmillan and will be published across the world in 2021 so it's very exciting as well I'm also known and some of you may know me for this reason for tweeting advice about the game's history and game writing in particular so you see my Twitter at the bottom I tend to tweet about games things a lot and I also have a guide that I update game writing and maybe expand to other things as well so that's that's the backdrop on which I am giving you advice so what I will be talking about today one thing I'll be talking about which is probably why some of you were here is about strategies for getting work and and how to think of yourself as getting work what's the overriding principle as you follow so I've successfully freelance done a lot of games and made a living with that that's why I'm able to

give that advice why did I choose to freelance so I was awkward and like to be free hence the term freelance and now this has that kind of positive and negative aspect to it as the talk we'll discuss an assault on twin a moment I'll be talking about the dream of a freelance lifestyle so it sounds great you've worked from home you can travel the world and work you can work on loads of projects you can build a portfolio very fast all sounds really good there's also some weed and verted nightmare realities of being a freelancer so it's not great it's actually all those things are actually kind of terrible at the same time and there's a kind of bad side to a lot of stuff that sounds initially good and also talking about emotional well-being strategies so every bad dream is manageable and it's just a bad dream and I'll also be talking about survival mode my definition of survival mode as fits freelancers so how you can get through kind of bad times as freelancer and how you can keep going so I'm gonna start with this and this is going to be

linked into throughout the talk this is my rough pitch for how I think of myself and how I try to get jobs in the industry and I'm very happy to expand about this after and I did a little mini Twitter thread already which I really tweet about where I go into more detail than I will now about this particular point so beyond what I'm just put up on this thing I'm just gonna say something first you none of this will work unless you're actually able to do what you want to do so you have to actually be able to write to become a writer you have to be a professional artist to get an art gig you have to know how to code to be a programmer so if you don't have the sufficient skills there it may be difficult to get jobs however as we all know some people are able to get jobs who and may not be the absolute top of their field but they have other assets that are able to help them which is a useful thing to think about when you're trying to get gigs as presumably very talented people in your own right so I did a tweet on Twitter awhile back where I said something to the effect of if you don't talk about what you do no one will know you're doing it this at its root

it's not always true we know of situations where people can be lucky enough or have networks enough that they are broadcast or they produce something so good that it's captured the hearts of many but we also know of projects that are really good that didn't get the attention they deserved games that were really worried well written or well developed that just didn't get out there as much as what you might see as more mediocre titles there is not a direct correlation between talent and people knowing about talent which is a key thing you have to solve is freelancer because you aren't selling yourself in the basis to a small number of people in a room in an interview once you are on going selling yourself to loads of different projects throughout the year so you have people have to know who you are in some respect now I say here somehow promote yourself because there are many ways of doing this which you might be come to with one more than the other and people often claim that they don't self promote themselves and that's either because they've defined it very specifically or they're being disingenuous so here are some ways in which some people might self promote

they might have a website where they have their projects listed and some of their skills they'll have a business card they might attend events like this one right now GDC this is a networking event where you can meet people and and find out new opportunities people might have an active social media presence where you discuss things online you join in communities you you do that now some people will tweet all the time about projects they've worked on and try and spread the news some people will hardly ever have expressed themselves from that kind of presence or that kind of venue but they will in person be going to networking events or be in circles or know people that will get them work they are doing something to be known about the people who hire because always if you analyze it it doesn't read whatever the discourse is about self-promotion it doesn't make sense that someone would hire you if they have no idea who you are like that's a causal just no relationship there so thinking about the way in which you're comfortable doing this and the way in which you can best do this is a really important thing and privilege will also affect this so geographically where you're located

certain other things about yourself may make some of these strategies more or less easy so I would have always advised never looking down on other people who do different methods to you because they may have - as opposed to the things you do beyond this an idea which I would cross under self promotion is knowing how to hunt gigs and when to chase emails and opportunities so knowing the venues where things are advertised or discussed within your discipline finding it for example for game writing there's a Facebook group about game writing jobs are routinely posted on Twitter I loads of other disciplines as well will have different areas or different places where people discuss things meetup groups for disciplines and so on also knowing when to chase emails and opportunities loads of people I know who are talented missed out on gigs because they don't follow up so they'll apply for something they'll never hear back and then that's the end of it for them whereas you shouldn't be afraid of if you wait a polite 2 or 3 weeks after you've sent in an application if you're in parenting back send to chase up email being polite not harassing them or anything and you tend to get a sense of

how to do this so being like I I noticed I was just wondering what the status of this application is could you tell me more if there's anything else I can provide let me know this will often get you an opportunity that you might missed otherwise just because 4-game jobs you might get 200 300 applications and it went yupi things can get lost in the cracks likewise is a way of thinking about obtaining gigs you want to build portfolios that can be appreciated by non-specialists those hiring for roles particularly in freelance often have very little expertise in the in the discipline they're hiring for this is especially true of writing but is often the case for other things as well they'll have some knowledge enough to discuss with you but they won't know as much as you do that's why the hiring you you're the expert who has the skill that they don't have so by building portfolios that can be appreciated by non-specialists you have to try and think of the mentality of those people hiring you and you can learn this through trial and error if you're ever in the position to help hire for a job try and get involved already sitting because it gives you such a mindset in science that

mindset that will alter how you then pitch yourself so a key principle is reducing ambiguity that you will be able to do what you were being hired to do so people often asked like oh I'm an amazing writer an amazing singer around me you're makes over artist I'm an amazing animate all these things if you haven't produced many projects there's an understandable ambiguity that you'll be able to deliver even if you can show the skills they don't know if you've worked in the kind of environment that they work in they don't know if you're reliable with deadlines they don't know if you know the compromise is required in game development to work through multiple types of project so if you reduce that ambiguity and you're somehow able to convince people limit risk in hiring you that's a great thing to do and there's quite a few different ways of doing this for example I advise people having a range of samples for a variety of gig types of studio sizes so for example in game writing people might have an early mistake as people have portfolios of very highly branching dense complex interactive fiction people

designing games that are kind of a very strange mechanic or kind of very specific feature set and then trying to go to like massive triple-a companies with some with a portfolio type that is nothing like they produce and so thinking about the kind of stuff you're applying for and having things that it's very useful those of you in the audience you already are freelancing or already have worked in games because this is range this is aimed at all levels trying to think about how you can diversify that portfolio I'd work on projects different to those that might be like your dream project are really useful and when your early career trying to purpose we do different types and that regard is really good so for example that you want to make really kind of tragic dramatic emotional games that's great but I applied for other types of games as well especially already Craig get that diverse portfolio get a portfolio that makes it look like you will be trusted to do lots of different types of tasks rather than just one and finally and

this is a very important thing possibly more important even than pure talent is suggesting you will be good to work with and you'll be able to work in a team in gay specifically this is hugely important because it's often producers do hire you who are about working and establishing good team vision the whole kind of like the greatest writer in the world wouldn't necessarily get a job but a very good writer who was good to work with will get the job when that greatest writer wouldn't get that job and be able to demonstrate that and prove that it's a very useful thing to do so obviously interviews and your communications you'll come across a certain way with them so not being too insistent in chasing up stuff but chasing up stuff in a friendly manner ask if you're ever else in an interview do you have any questions always have a question it just makes it seem like you're listening more and engaging with the material that they're discussing with you if you have worked in any kind of team which you should be if you're applying for jobs so even game jams or any kind of free kind of reap tasks like that where anyone could join do it try

and get some sense that you've worked in teams communicate the kinds of teams you've worked with and the kind of roles you've worked with as soon as you have paid work or all kind of projects that have come out or student projects or whatever try and get some testimonials from people you've worked with and put them on your website that will be a sort of that would be incredibly useful for communicating these factors about you and it's also quite nice for your kind of self care to see what people nice things people have said about you as well so those are two ways of bolstering these principles and we can return to this later and I'm very happy afterwards to discuss with people about their own stuff how to further address these things now I want to discuss some motivations many freelancers may have for freelancing in the first place so some people may freelance out of necessity there may be no available in-house roles that they would rather do they'd rather be a full-time staff member somewhere but it's not so you need to apply for other jobs it may be due to layoffs so the games industry particular over the last year has experienced a lot of layoffs for a lot of big companies people may have to freelance for short periods of time when

they may not be their desired thing in order to pay rent and others may just have gaps in the career between larger gigs that they'd rather do and want to find working between some may for example freelance because their early career so the kind of a lot of game applications will say you must have five years experience so for this it's like how do you build that five years experience if you don't have any work so you freelance is often a solution why I chose to freelance partly it's my disposition and this may apply to some other people as well I valued the ability to control my time and workflow as much as I could others are not so others really like kind of ongoing rigidity and kind of safety net and security of certain in how structures which enough to really enable people's creativity and freedom from a lot of worries that you might have here whereas I I wanted to other things in this regard I there were certain issues about security for me so it's often presented that in-house jobs

are most cure and safer than freelance work in terms of your earning flow but as we've seen in the last year and in different especially different parts of walls with different laws about employment you can often be let go at the drop of a hat it's not as secure as it looks likewise there's a sense of security that's emotional as well for me at least in terms of the idea that instead of one boss could have vast power over my emotional life day today as happens in any workplace I'd rather distribute that and have multiple bosses which makes me more of a force in in what I can do in my own space but likewise there's an ambitious aspect so I wanted to learn fast and efficiently and make my own projects as much as possible so if I was to be in-house at some of these two years I would have worked for three or four years on one project which is amazing for as an experience but I I wanted more breadth I wanted to try a lots of different things that's how my mind works and that's something I value and what's to be creatively and has helped

me benefit me going forward so talking about the alleged dreams of freelancing so pros for freelancing that people discuss organizational so you might be your own boss get to organize your own time insurance against mass layoffs a particular company so you know if you've got loads and loads a lot of jobs lined up then doesn't matter if one contract cancels with you because you've got others it it may be very bad in the short term but you've distributed your work time greater freedom from internal politics and crunch so because your contractor you have a business relationship rather than employment relationship you may have some kind of separation from some internal problems that company may have regarding crunch you may for example have a different contract type terms which allow you to charge for such extra time or to contractually guard against that time you don't have to sign those terms all the time finally you might get a greater ability to promote yourself and your own work so you might be able to talk about

what you do more or do your own projects at the same time as other ones you're working on and actually get your name out there and what you want to do out there no one can stop you speaking at a conference whereas they could if you worked in a company you can write work as well they're also creative benefits to being a freelancer so you work on projects you choose to work on rather than a digital company assigned to you you might have freedom to create your own solo work and IP in multiple mediums so a lot of games companies as some of you may know for full-time roles do not allow you to work on any projects outside the one they ask for - even in different media so for example as a writer if I wanted to write a novel working for some of these companies I wouldn't be allowed to unless they gave me permission otherwise they donut which didn't sit right with me as an industry norm likewise as I mentioned before learning and developing skills much faster due to work at a range of projects and different types of studios and genres now as I said at the beginning there's a sort of a bad side to a lot of these things as well which must be considered

carefully if you were to make the proactive choice to become a freelancer or stay a freelancer a lot of people will present it as very positive in a career and it does have its positive aspects but you have to accept due to the nature of the world we live in but there are various consequences of some of these things so if a be your own boss that sounds great in one respect but you also have all the anxieties worries and lack of security to come to that you're your own boss yeh you're also your own boss with all the you may treat yourself like a boss would treat you which is a strange relationship to have with your own work and you can be very hard on yourself as a freelancer in a way you wouldn't be if you're an employee likewise organising your own time that sounds great and if any of you ever tried to do massive projects in your spare time it's very difficult to organize your own time with no one's making you do things at particular changes you have to be have a lot of self-discipline you have to be able to get off up off the back on the horse if at certain times insurance gets mass layoffs oh yeah fine but it's often way easier to determinate contract that employment in many cases so you can like there is some

level of security but you have to be very careful who you work with you may sometimes get paid late sometimes you may not get paid at all and might have battles with companies going on behind the scenes do two ND age you may not even be able to say that you haven't been paid which is a really weird scenario to be in likewise you may have greater freedom from internal politics but you guys may actually be more vulnerable this than this to this than others and you may be seen as an outsider so yeah fine you're free from that day-to-day situation in the studio but like there are sort of certain familial benefits you often get in teams where people hang out with each other all the time if you're not there you might for example be excluded from meetings people in the studio might resent the fact that you're being given all this stuff to do when they want to do it and so on and you might have kind of various conflicts that are just totally not in any way your responsibility but kind of rise likewise yeah fine you can also promote yourself but non-disclosure agreements are very constant throughout the industry and you you may not never be

able to talk about certain projects the extent that you'd like to and even when a project comes out often NDA's will last in an indefinite amount of time so you have to ask permission to talk about finally you may have an ability to remote work but sometimes you know you don't you have to go in-house so there are loads of jobs which would require you to leave across the country or the world for five months with no promise to employment beyond that when you do do remote work there have to be a whole host of other potential issues about movement of time about wanting you to check in non-stop on on an online messaging service for example when you're actually working on other stuff time could be a strange thing and companies don't always know how to deal with that process on the creative side working projects you choose to work on yes but often the process to get on a project can be very strange so in writing you there's a common thing where you might have like a six month long selection procedure that's kind of calf grass and you might be kind of selected or not selected for various kind of indeterminate reasons they don't have

really given feedback on if you have the financial luxury to wait for perfect projects yeah fine you can work on projects you choose to but if you'll need those contracts every month for different jobs you'll have to just have to take things as they come and convince yourself and others that you're the best person for that project and yeah sure you'll do a great job but is it the one you really set out to do when you wanted this freelance life not necessarily likewise yeah fine you've got freedom to create your own work but time and energies can be a huge issue of actually being able to do that when you're working on contracts all the time however I would argue that this isn't really as much of a nightmare as it sounds because you're still free to do so ultimately which for many people they will value that you can make something because you want to make it and you're not told by a corporate entity that you cannot on the final point I actually don't think there is a weird nightmare side to that I think you do learn and develop skills faster in some ways they're not necessarily the same skills you'd learn if you were on a project for multiple years but you you can learn a lot if you leverage the opportunities correctly and rapidly diversify see

multiple studio types styles working genres of game very quickly cool so overall there is no dream as the title of the talk suggested you always like wake up you always we've passed those positive aspects but likewise there doesn't have to be a nightmare it doesn't have to be as bad as those bad things sounds you can find something in between which is what partly I'm advising today so be mindful of your emotions and energy levels mitigate inevitable psychological threats and prepare challenges so it's a hard life being a freelancer it's very rewarding but it's hard and not everyone wants to or suited to doing it but may have to so hence the advice today so to such major psychological threats which has you Lincoln to the advice about careers in general that I was discussing at the beginning you may suffer impostor syndrome so many of you in this room may suffer from impostor syndrome and wonder about your own skills it's a common thing you have to constantly pitch your own work and abilities to gain new gigs

and maintain part relationships you're often isolated from teams and colleagues that kind of friendship throughout the day or that kind of camaraderie you may lack you may not have anyone telling you you're good because you've been hired to do a task if you do it then that's often paid that's often seen as you being told that you're good no one may ever tell you that your work was good until you find out in a review that it was good which could be a very strange life you don't have performance reviews or anything likewise you may not be able to discuss sharing work so certain sauce is a pleasure that you can only have about talking about what you do you can't you don't always have you know in control of even after release you may often also face the threat of burnout so the unpaid labor of self-promotion tests applying for work economic fear can take a toll and lots of people you you you have the excitement of all these different things but the associated costs and risk of what if I don't get a gig in the next few months what if I have a period of unemployment what if I have to borrow money what if I get into debt these can all be huge issues that are emotionally exhausting in addition to the work

you're doing likewise being pushed to meet aggressive schedules and manage multiple projects can also be a bit of a toll so it's great you get to work on with stuff but you're working on loads of stuff which can be a kind of quite a big problem in itself and create an emotional toll so some strategies for dealing with these things if you embark on his career so client dealings will often add to your sense of imposter syndrome so having to convince people not getting the kind of feedback you might one weird internal politics and all the other issues I've discussed can can add to it you want to make sure the situation's you get involved in are as good as possible in setting expectations often companies aren't intentionally acting in a way that's detrimental to you so consider interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you like assess try and get even if you're going to take the job whatever because you want the job and you need the money you can still stand up yourself in the interview process and try and make sure that the working environments are right fit so set expectations about your schedule your hours your involvement in the team your role your working habits how you work tell them how you've worked on the

project that's a great thing to do an interview because once again that whole idea of ambiguity about whether you can do it that answers that topic but it also helps you in terms of your working time it sets up that time go do it you know this hiring me and you can refer back to that if there are problems later like you knew that I work like this and how you get feedback it's often good to have an arranged feedback cycle so that you actually get some affirmation on your work gain from track xual protections regarding crediting and post stories discussion so always are for always ask for in your contract that you are definitely credited and make that a compulsion upholstery thing about working with them likewise have some kind of protection that will may allow you to in some way discuss your work post race and I can post some extra stuff about this online afterwards about how I formulated this so I'll post on Twitter later this is a more restrained thing but kind of shed you'll you're worrying about things two particular times in the week and I'm gonna discuss in a second like Korea time from planning time don't just be in a constant fear mode about arranging stuff make that part of your job book that in like you would something a job for a

particular time if you rate your site for self-care so websites are great for advertising yourself they're also great for advertising yourself to yourself reading about your achievements seeing what you've done editing that and keeping that going it's really I I find that fun so I just edit it for the sake of it I'm not doing anything I'm just making it nicely arranged and looking good fine community is joining with other people talk with other people make sure you're not alone likewise with burnout manage your time easier said than done shed your own quarantine a block of Korea time daily and weekly even if contract so even if you're in jobs spend maybe like half an hour morning or an hour a week or whatever trying to build those self emotional strategies like for talks to apply to look for game jams to go to look for communities to join look for new projects even if you've got stuff arranged never never stop if you stop that's where more risk can be created for yourself try and reduce the cognitive load of too many tasks by finishing short ones first which is generally a good idea to get get try not to be doing too many things and there's

a principle I call of soft and absolute rest time because I'm very unhealthy of my own working habits this is what I kind of try and do but soft rest time is where I'll say and I know conditions I will relax yes absolute rest time is in not ideal conditions I was writing I was still rest I would still have this rest break no matter what unless it's really bad and I have to sure so for example software styler might take the evenings off during the week and a Saturday and a Sunday if things are going good in absolute crisis conditions where I have to burnout I even then will not take Sunday's I'll take Sundays off I'll make sure I take that rest it's extremely important try and have someone you trust hold you accountable and encourage you with this make sure they know your schedule and make sure they keep you to it it's quite very quickly at Angus about the bits of time so dealing with career gaps follow previous evasive self-promotion if you've got a gap between gigs and you're really hunting for stuff extend those blocks to longer periods of time the career box so devote more time to

things so one thing for example I'll do on Twitter when I'm in these gaps as I will search for certain keywords like game writing game writers narrative designers so on that will take ages to troll through most of the tweets tokey irrelevant but I will find a gig maybe once a week or something like that although two people aren't willing to do that but that will actually deliver me from crisis that will actually give me jobs no one else is found when I have to and be willing to do that is something you have to as a freelancer reach out to your professional network directly for support or is a good idea other people will then actually possibly give you projects or make you aware of things if you have to what also work on a project of your own even if you don't have work your work is your business which can include your own solo projects your and creative endeavors so keep going even if you don't have paid employment consider a site house if necessary various times throughout my game career I've example tutored or teaching briefly to be able to make rent and so on it's nothing to be ashamed of no everyone can be constant and things will happen exiting survival mode so being able to move out of that that could be really difficult once you've had a few periods

of time with big cancellations or things you've had to move fast it can be quite hard to get back to a mallet II so one thing I'll do for example and you can define this on your own basis is if I have less than two months of work arranged I will then hit the mode I just described where I try and find work and I add all those things and that gives me a bit of a safety net from absolute crisis exiting survivor mode can be really difficult so writing a commitment and putting that somewhere of when you'll feel safe is a really good idea and get an accountability partner to help pull you out of this when you've reached this point so try and get someone who will be able to recognize and be around you enough to recognize when you need to move on Alecto because it can be very dangerous otherwise I finally make sure you try and finish the solar project but don't be unkind to yourself because keep going do your own stuff that's why you're a freelancer you can do this so in sum up be kind to others in your position we're all in this together and a lot of freelancers may try and build each other up or cut each other down those who build others up will often be helped far more than those who cut others down others will help you others will recognize your goodness your willingness

to support be just as kind to yourself we often are very hard on ourselves some way others are not and as freelancers we're very much a risk for this you will create your best work when you're inspired not when tired miserable resenting creative activity you may drawn those emotions to produce work later that you've had in other times but when actually creating that deserves no one so don't drive yourself into the ground so that's exactly a time but I'll be available for questions afterwards and around here and stuff so yeah [Applause]