Got a call from a little film company that was doing the packaging for Warner Brothers on Babylon 5, which I’d worked on. I did a very long, very interesting on-camera interview about the making of the show early on, when the creator of the series, Joe Straczynski, hired me. A young woman called and said they wanted to use it on the DVD.

“That can that be arranged,” I said. “All you have to do is pay me.”

“Well,” she said, “everybody else is doing it for nothing.”

“Everybody else may be, but I'm not,” I said. “By what right would you call and ask me to work for nothing? Do you get a paycheck?”

“Well, yes…but it would be good publicity…”

“Does your boss get a paycheck? Do you pay the cameraman? Do you pay the cutters? Do you pay the Teamsters when they shlep your stuff on trucks? Would you go to a gas station and ask for free gas? Would you go to the doctor and have them take out your spleen for nothing? How dare you call and want me to work for the publicity! Tell that to someone who’s just fallen off the turnip truck. There’s no publicity value in my interview being on your DVD. If you sell 2,000, will people say, ‘Oh, I really like the way the guy gave that interview. I wonder if he's ever written a book’? The only value for me is if you cross my palm with silver.”

“Well alright, thank you,” she said, and hung up.

These people want everything for nothing. They wouldn't go five seconds without being paid and they bitch because they want more. These people are so used to getting it for nothing they don't even send you a copy of the DVD. You call to ask where it is and they tell you to go to the store and buy it. And I should do a freebie for Warner Brothers?

The problem is, there are so goddamn many writers who have no idea they're supposed to be paid every time they do something, they do it for nothing. I get so angry because the amateurs make it tough for the professionals. I sell myself, but at the highest rates. I don't take a piss without getting paid.

 HARLAN ELLISON