How To Be A Freelancer In Game Audio
Overview
The majority of people in sound design start as freelancers working on a variety of smaller projects. This is because there are more entry-level sound designers than entry-level full-time employment jobs out there. However, there are plenty of smaller games that require short term work from freelance sound designers. Learning the basics of how to be a freelancer will help you a lot.
Lots of sound designers and composers actually prefer being freelance as it allows them to pick the projects they work on and gives them more freedom over their own time. This comes at the expense of less job security, having to do your own tax returns and no sick or holiday pay.
The good thing is that it’s a personal choice whether you want to look for in-house jobs or become a freelancer.
What Is A Freelancer?
A freelancer in game development is someone who works for various different companies on a contractual basis rather than being full-time employed by a single one.
As a freelancer, you’re responsible for finding your own work in order to maintain a steady income stream. This means that your job role extends from simply being a sound designer or composer to a bunch of other things including a marketing department advertising your skills, a lawyer negotiating contracts, a project manager organising your deadlines and an accountant doing your taxes.
That might sound incredibly overwhelming but the good thing is that you won’t be doing all of these things at once but rather step by step. Most people learn these things as they go along so having a basic knowledge of the different skills required will prepare you to tackle the hurdles and come out ahead.
Marketing
Marketing yourself is absolutely necessary to grow your game audio brand and get new clients. The term is usually associated with pushing ads into people's faces and spamming them with emails. That, however, is not at all what marketing is about instead, we want to provide value to the community, show up to events and talk to people as well as share great content on social media.
For further information, I recommend checking out the Unlocking Social Media topic in the Practise & Build Your Network section.
Akash Thakkar is an absolutely excellent resource in the field of game audio business for freelancers and I highly recommend checking out his Sound Business podcast:
https://www.akashthakkar.com/podcast
Project Proposals
What is a project proposal?
Similar to a contract the project proposal should make it clear to your client what the timeline, budget, goals, deliverables and processes for this project are. The difference is that the proposal is a little bit like a sales pitch, its goal is to make it as easy as possible for your client to say yes to the proposal. As Ben Gallagher put it nicely - it outlines your plan to tackle their problem.
I’ve put together some amazing resources below to help you write outstanding proposals.
Here is a great project proposal template from Akash Thakkar:
https://akashthakkar.lpages.co/project-proposal/
Upgrade your project proposals:
https://www.thegameaudiopro.com/post/your-secret-weapon-for-getting-game-audio-clients
A great tip from Akkash Thakkar:
https://www.akashthakkar.com/post/the-pre-send-send
Contracts
A contract is incredibly important to protect you, ensure you get paid and set the exact specifications of what you will deliver to the client. Additionally, it establishes who owns what which is especially important when it comes to music. Lastly, because you’re negotiating these details upfront it will save potential disagreements later along the line.
Negotiation
It’s completely fine to negotiate in a friendly and respectful manner. Both parties are trying to align their interests and this can sometimes require a little bit of back and forth until everyone is happy.
Here is an absolutely incredible summary of all the high-level info you need to know about game audio contracts: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/audio/game-audio-contracts
Additionally, here is a short GDC presentation covering information about contracts and how to work with indie studios: https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020375/Indie-Audio-Contracts-Compensation-Communication
Calculating Your Rates
“How much should I charge?” that question bugged me for a long time when I first started out and the worst part is that the answer is always: “It depends.”
There is no one size fits all solution and you have to factor in a bunch of different things. However, the good news is that you can learn how to calculate your rate based on your current experience, financial circumstances and the amount of work you will need to do.
Pricing your work is a skill that you will get better at over time. The more projects you do, the more accurate you will be able to calculate how long something will take you and how much effort it is.
However, if you follow the guides below you’ll be able to get a good starting point.
Ben Gallagher from The Game Audio Pro put together an amazing rate calculator template which I have personally used myself: https://www.thegameaudiopro.com/post/how-to-set-your-game-audio-rates
Additionally, an article with some advice from Ryan Ike on why you should put your price higher: https://www.asoundeffect.com/game-audio-pricing/
Money Management
As a freelancer, you most likely won’t have as regular of an income as a full-time employed person. This is of course because you get paid per project, sometimes you might have multiple projects at the same time and other times you might not have any at all for long periods of time.
Learning how to manage your money and stabilise your income will make life a lot easier and less stressful.
Here is a great article by Christine C. Renee on some of the basics of money management:
https://bloggingwizard.com/manage-money-freelancer/
But let’s talk a little bit about how you can use the tools below to stabilise your cash flow.
Deposits
A deposit is an upfront payment of a percentage of the total fee which is negotiated ahead of time. Usually, this tends to be 25%-50% of the audio budget. Here are the two main reasons deposits are useful:
Securing cashflow When you’re working on a 3-6 months project and you get paid at the end of the project you’re going to struggle to finance yourself during it unless you’ve saved a lot of money. By getting some of the money in advance you’ll have a more stable income. A trick to manage your finances over a longer project is to simply pay yourself a fixed wage each week, month or whatever timeframe works best for you. This makes it budgeting easier as you won’t spend too much of the money in the beginning only to realize you’ve not got enough left to get to the end of the project.
Commitment Securing some of the money upfront shows commitment to the project from both parties. You know that the client will pay you and they know that you’re willing to invest the time into the project.
Milestone Payments
This system is built around splitting the project into multiple smaller milestones each of which have certain requirements. After completing each milestone you will receive a payment which is usually calculated as the full project cost divided by the number of milestones. For example, if we have 3 milestones you will receive 1/3rd of the agreed money for each milestone.
The contents of the milestone can be variable and negotiated with the client. They can either be based on sections of the game (levels, areas, etc.), priority lists or categories like SFX, music, foley and implementation.
Milestone payments are a great alternative to deposits and have a lot of benefits.
Securing Cashflow Following the same principle as a deposit, splitting up your payments into multiple smaller ones helps you finance yourself easier over long periods of time.
Security Receiving payments for each milestone prevents the developer from running out of money early and not being able to pay you at all. In this scenario, you would only lose the money of a single milestone rather than the full project. Additionally, it shows they are committed to paying you.
Renegotiation If you notice after the 2nd milestone that there is more work than expected it’s a lot easier to simply add another milestone rather than renegotiating the entire fee.
Invoices
Sending out professional-looking invoices is really important as a freelancer. Thankfully invoices are very simple and there are some general guidelines to follow.
This great summary from Olive Olin gives you all the tools to put together a professional invoice:
https://soundgirls.org/quick-guide-on-invoicing/
Some people opt to use banking apps like Tide to send their invoices, this usually tends to be easier however, you’ll have fewer options to customise it.
When writing invoices it can be tricky to figure out how to categorise the items. Here are a few different ways:
Categories (SFX, Foley, Music, Implementation)
Levels/Areas (Level 1 full audio pass - asset recording, designing and implementation)
Milestones (Milestone 1 - Sound design for all weapons, foley and footsteps for all 3 characters)
These are just a couple of examples to give you a better idea of systems that you could use to organise and list the items on your invoice.
Finally, it’s really important to state you are self-employed & responsible for your own tax, insurance & health care. This can be done with a simple line like the one below:
“I am self-employed & responsible for my own tax & national insurance”
Taxes
Taxes are probably the least fun part of freelancing yet being aware of them is important as you’ll need to calculate them into your budget and save up money to pay them.
Here are a couple of tips to help you navigate this subject better:
Set aside 20% of your income. Taxes will of course vary from country to country but a good measure is to set aside 20% of your earnings for the tax bill.
Keep track of all of your income and outgoings. This will help you with incredible amounts when you’re doing your taxes as you know exactly how much you can deduct from your profits. There are great budget trackers out there which you can find with a quick google. I personally prefer a very simple spreadsheet that I modified from a template as I’ll admit that I’m pretty lazy when it comes to these things so the simpler the better: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T1OJbuv5EuO2LOQzLZ5H2EkyyzBtAUa0JoOR8YUmZ-Y/copy
Use a separate bank or savings account to set money aside for your tax bill. By moving the money out of your main account you’ll be a lot less likely to spend it.
Organisation
Being organised and having ways to track your tasks, deadlines, assets and projects is vital for the success of your freelancing business.
The To-Do List
Your to-do list is your number one tool to stay on track and make sure that you don’t overlook anything important. I’m “oldschool” and like to keep my tasks in a paper notebook but there are great task list apps out there so just use whatever works best for you.
Spreadsheets
Being able to whip up spreadsheets that help you stay organised and maintain an overview of your current project will help you immensely. I recommend google sheets as it is free, you can access it from anywhere and it has great functionality. If you want to learn more about spreadsheets then check out the Organisation & Pipelines topic in the Game Audio Basics section
Time Management
Time management is vital as missing your deadlines might mean losing clients.
This article provides some great tips on how to succeed in that area:
https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/time-management.html
Additionally, this video from Ali Abdaal is pretty useful:
https://youtu.be/iONDebHX9qk
Discipline & Productivity
Working from home isn’t always easy, there is no one looking over your shoulder and managing you. This means you have to be self-disciplined and consistent in order to be productive.
By designing your workspace in a way that optimises your workflow, minimises distractions and supports building good habits you’ll get a lot more done. Of course, this isn’t always easy as you might eat, sleep, work and relax in the same room so rituals like going for a walk after work or having a second profile on your computer for work is a good way to create a healthier work-life balance.
This amazing video by Jonas Tyroller changed my approach to productivity:
https://youtu.be/DlVkznQwtww
Managing Expectations
When you’re starting out it’s really important to manage your expectations. It’s hard but very achievable to get into this industry.
You will succeed if you put in the time and work but it’s most likely that it will take a while for the seeds you plant to grow. In the beginning, this job will most likely not be enough to sustain you and you’ll probably be working a part-time job on the side. You might have to work on projects you don’t really like just to get experience but with time your reputation and experience will grow and so will your client base.
More consistent work will come in and eventually you’ll be able to get pick and choose projects you work on.
So to sum up - play the long game rather than jumping into the deep end and sinking before you can swim.