In cocktail party and resume writing parlance, anyone with 10 sales on Lulu can easily pass themselves off as a "professional" because that term was bastardized in meaningless so very long ago.

But for me to consider someone "a professional author" of any genre, I expect writing to be their major source of income.

But WTF, lots of the best stuff in our hobby comes from amateurs.

The problem is "major source of income" doesn't really work all that well either; because even those who may at a certain moment be writing RPGs as their main livelihood tend to switch back and forth on that scale.

Not to mention that a lot of the alleged "professionals" by that category are really just amateurs who got lucky in terms of getting a position; and that often there's no discernible difference in the level of quality between them and the gifted among the amateurs, in fact some of the "professional RPG writers" for the big companies are demonstrably worse at both designing game systems or writing in general than some of the guys who are doing it for shits and giggles.  So there's no real "professional standard" going on that all the pros are held to.

RPGPundit

A professional isn't a hobbyist. A hobbyist pursues a pastime out of pleasure, with no thought to placing or creating an external value on the activity. Play for the sake of play. A professional pursues a primary motive besides enjoyment. The attempt to create a social value from the activity, whether financial or simply the validation of culture by declaring their activity "art".

Quote from: RPGPundit;676640Not to mention that a lot of the alleged "professionals" by that category are really just amateurs who got lucky in terms of getting a position; and that often there's no discernible difference in the level of quality between them and the gifted among the amateurs, in fact some of the "professional RPG writers" for the big companies are demonstrably worse at both designing game systems or writing in general than some of the guys who are doing it for shits and giggles.  So there's no real "professional standard" going on that all the pros are held to.

This is true of many other creative arenas, though – you're gonna go down a rabbit hole trying to define a professional standard of quality.

I would go with "consistent source of income" as the general yardstick like I said earlier. If the hobby is small enough that all these consistent sources of income amount to part-time work, well, that's a professional as far as the hobby is concerned.

QuoteA professional isn't a hobbyist. A hobbyist pursues a pastime out of pleasure, with no thought to placing or creating an external value on the activity. Play for the sake of play. A professional pursues a primary motive besides enjoyment.

Professionals make money. That is all.

Beyond that, you have the part where professionals conduct themselves reliably, hit deadlines, etc. and work like someone who needs the money whereas a pure hobbyist will work when inspiration strikes, but you can't chop it all down to primary motives.

Motive is all money is ultimately. That and a fascinatingly stupid game of make-believe every adult on the planet has tacitly agreed to play. As its entirely possible for an amateur to make money on one of their heartbreakers, or hobby projects, there's no inherent connection between money and the professional.

As to the behaviour "professionalism", thats a separate concept with no bearing on the discussion. A person can be a professional and not act professionally.