Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 20, 2021, 08:06:55 PM
Lets say you're 100% right on the art & editing...

There's this thing called crowdfunding, IF I can show the writting is done% and only the art and editing need to be done I'm pretty sure I can get the project funded. I might even be able to pay for formatting.

And marketing, well start talking about it constantly on all social media platforms you're on. Well before finishing the project, start creating interest.

Crowdfunding, organizing the art/editing, and budgeting for publishing are all very different skills from the writing piece of a TTRPG book.

I'm not saying that it's impossible to do all of them - but it's a lot of extra work & not something that the best TTRPG writers are inherently skilled at.

It's not like most TTRPG publishers have massive profits which the writer is being unfairly kept from seeing a piece of. With the exception of maybe D&D - the vast majority entire industry is pretty much published with shoestrings & bubblegum. Almost nobody up or down the chain is making bank.

Edit: grammar

Median wage in the US in Q4 2020 was $51,158 annual basis, according to the BLS.

A quick google search says avge salary in Seattle is about $67k.

Aged 25 and over without high school diploma (US wide): $31,616. So WotC are basically paying the economy's floor rate, in an expensive city.

That said these are whole-labour-market comparisons. I guess the avge WotC employee is young. Younger workers earn less.

I think the real issue for these people is not so much what they earn now, as where it is going medium to longer term. It is one thing scraping by in a studio apartment on 30k a year in your 20s. How about in your 40s? Is there really a credible career path in the industry?

You'll never get rich working for someone else, but in this hobby, will you be successful without the official Dungeons and Dragons markings on the front of your box?

Good luck.

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 20, 2021, 11:14:55 PM
You'll never get rich working for someone else, but in this hobby, will you be successful without the official Dungeons and Dragons markings on the front of your box?

Good luck.

Depends on where you set your bar for "success." ;-)

But yeah, no, probably not. LOL

Jessica Price is a well-known TROLL:



She's a "Feminactivist" who finds fault in everything she decides is evil. But, her definition of evil is whatever will get her creed on social media. She's a SM tourist. She worked for Paizo and got fired for lack of talent and has been vengeful ever since. JP is a truly boring "sensitivity writer" who's expert at dragging down companies.

Please do not give her any real relevance.

The days of being able to freelance and make a decent living (by RPG standards) are over, just like the days of having staff writers/designers/editors/artists like TSR had is over. And speaking of artists, the days of oil on canvas or ink on paper is over too, and it's a damn shame. If you don't have a racial grievance grift (see that Indian game and the African game), a license or an existing fanbase, you have to go the pundit route as an independent RPG writer. Which is to say you have to get a social media presence and flog your products.

It's a lot of work. The alternative is to enter into an incestuous world of staff writers where sex and sexual orientation matters more than ability. Those with ability (Mike Mearls) and taken out back and strangled by jealous nobodies.

They continually crow about how great DnD is doing nowadays but are very coy about how much of that is from licensing and how much of that is from actually selling books. As a gamer I value books, as a corporation Hasbro will value easy money.

Quote from: horsesoldier on September 21, 2021, 11:19:55 AM
The days of being able to freelance and make a decent living (by RPG standards) are over, just like the days of having staff writers/designers/editors/artists like TSR had is over. And speaking of artists, the days of oil on canvas or ink on paper is over too, and it's a damn shame. If you don't have a racial grievance grift (see that Indian game and the African game), a license or an existing fanbase, you have to go the pundit route as an independent RPG writer. Which is to say you have to get a social media presence and flog your products.

It's a lot of work. The alternative is to enter into an incestuous world of staff writers where sex and sexual orientation matters more than ability. Those with ability (Mike Mearls) and taken out back and strangled by jealous nobodies.

They continually crow about how great DnD is doing nowadays but are very coy about how much of that is from licensing and how much of that is from actually selling books. As a gamer I value books, as a corporation Hasbro will value easy money.

That's a damn fine point actually. I mean I think the books will still sell like crazy (cause it's 5e) but I'd like to know if the recent sjdub infusion into their books since Tasha's has hurt/helped/kept stable book sales.

Quote from: jhkim on September 20, 2021, 03:24:35 AMI'd split the difference here some. Artistically I'd love it if RPG writers got paid top dollar so the best writers came to write RPG systems and modules. But that's not how capitalism works - so it's not what I would expect of a for-profit company. It's not an invalid business practice to pay workers the going market rate. That means that the best writers are going to go into other fields - because that's what the market says. RPGs have never paid the best compared to other fields, and writers in general tend not to make great money.

Still, companies may be doing specific practices that are bad for authors that don't particularly save money, and that's likely just bad business. Even when paying market rates, companies can attempt to treat their writers as well as reasonable, rather than short-sightedly skimping on them and the work environment.

I suspect also a part of the problem is that many are anti-capitalist, and think that everyone needs to be given a living wage no matter what they do. And what they do instead of pursuing the higher paying jobs is complain on Twitter and indulge in character assassination.  As an employer, I would think very carefully before hiring this sort for any work at all.

Quote from: Theory of Games on September 21, 2021, 09:58:46 AM
Jessica Price is a well-known TROLL:

She's a "Feminactivist" who finds fault in everything she decides is evil. But, her definition of evil is whatever will get her creed on social media. She's a SM tourist. She worked for Paizo and got fired for lack of talent and has been vengeful ever since. JP is a truly boring "sensitivity writer" who's expert at dragging down companies.

Please do not give her any real relevance.

Actually, she was incredibly vengeful and destructive while at Paizo. I think her insane and vitriolic feminism was even too much for Paizo to take, and that's saying alot.

Just a garbage person who should have never been let in the door in the first place.

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 20, 2021, 11:14:55 PM
You'll never get rich working for someone else, but in this hobby, will you be successful without the official Dungeons and Dragons markings on the front of your box?

I have.

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 21, 2021, 12:51:53 PM

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 20, 2021, 11:14:55 PM
You'll never get rich working for someone else, but in this hobby, will you be successful without the official Dungeons and Dragons markings on the front of your box?

I have.

I was thinking that your success was more the exception, than the rule.

Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine: Stars without Number, Worlds Without Number, Godbound and others) also seems highly successful.

Admittedly, he's a one man show (he does all the work for his products except art, which he commissions) and from what he wrote in several of his posts here and there he works his ass off on research and playtest, which excludes a whole lot of people in the market. He also has a very keen business mind which further dramatically reduces the pool of potential similarities.

He was also smart enough to identify a well-defined underserved niche (primarily GM-facing OSR sandbox products) and stick to it religiously.

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 21, 2021, 01:00:14 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 21, 2021, 12:51:53 PM

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 20, 2021, 11:14:55 PM
You'll never get rich working for someone else, but in this hobby, will you be successful without the official Dungeons and Dragons markings on the front of your box?

I have.

I was thinking that your success was more the exception, than the rule.

  Anyone who gets rich doing what they do is always the exception, not the rule.  However, exceptional results often leave a backtrail that others who also want exceptional results can follow.   I know I watched a few videos and the guys doing the videos were writing sci fi for amazon (the ebooks).  Amazon actually pays the people publishing there a decent rate per copy sold, and these guys were doing pretty well.  Was their fiction good?  No.  I read a few of their samples and they were pretty terrible writers (like the old conan pastiche novels bad), but they had gained a bit of a following and produced constantly, so they had a bunch of stuff they were making residual income off of.  In essence a large portfolio that kept paying them, and some of the titles were a decade old.

   I first got interested in how well people were doing writing ebooks for amazon a few years ago watching Joe Rogan and a guest talking about a lady who was making shitloads of money from writing "big foot porn".  I laughed my ass off and scoffed at such a thing.  However Joe insisted this lady (a house wife in utah who was looking for something to do with her time, started writing under a psuedonym) was raking in cash.   Well I looked into it, she had quite an extensive offering of "big foot "romance"" and there was even a legion of people copying her with their own versions of comely maidens out in the woods seeking big foot's love.   From the top of my head I do not remember her download numbers, but I want to say everything she offered was in the hundreds of thousands of downloads, I do not remember anything being much less than 2.99,  much over 50-60 pages, and I want to say she had at least a dozen offerings.   Amazon pays 35-70 percent royalties... so a little math says Joe Rogan was not bullshitting and that lady is doing quite well with big foot porn. 

   My point is, being hardworking and prolific just *might* matter as much, and often more, than talent.   Even if you are talented, it seems to me working for one of the big guns can not last forever as you will feel stifled over time, and it seems the big guns draw in bureaucrats and very smedium talents to be able to get a 'guaranteed' paycheck.    So when someone points to an exception (and this is what I used to tell students training BJJ), and then asks what they should do as an average person, I always say... work your ass off to not be average.

Quote from: oggsmash on September 21, 2021, 01:54:17 PM

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 21, 2021, 01:00:14 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 21, 2021, 12:51:53 PM

Quote from: DM_Curt on September 20, 2021, 11:14:55 PM
You'll never get rich working for someone else, but in this hobby, will you be successful without the official Dungeons and Dragons markings on the front of your box?

I have.

I was thinking that your success was more the exception, than the rule.

  Anyone who gets rich doing what they do is always the exception, not the rule.  However, exceptional results often leave a backtrail that others who also want exceptional results can follow.   I know I watched a few videos and the guys doing the videos were writing sci fi for amazon (the ebooks).  Amazon actually pays the people publishing there a decent rate per copy sold, and these guys were doing pretty well.  Was their fiction good?  No.  I read a few of their samples and they were pretty terrible writers (like the old conan pastiche novels bad), but they had gained a bit of a following and produced constantly, so they had a bunch of stuff they were making residual income off of.  In essence a large portfolio that kept paying them, and some of the titles were a decade old.

   I first got interested in how well people were doing writing ebooks for amazon a few years ago watching Joe Rogan and a guest talking about a lady who was making shitloads of money from writing "big foot porn".  I laughed my ass off and scoffed at such a thing.  However Joe insisted this lady (a house wife in utah who was looking for something to do with her time, started writing under a psuedonym) was raking in cash.   Well I looked into it, she had quite an extensive offering of "big foot "romance"" and there was even a legion of people copying her with their own versions of comely maidens out in the woods seeking big foot's love.   From the top of my head I do not remember her download numbers, but I want to say everything she offered was in the hundreds of thousands of downloads, I do not remember anything being much less than 2.99,  much over 50-60 pages, and I want to say she had at least a dozen offerings.   Amazon pays 35-70 percent royalties... so a little math says Joe Rogan was not bullshitting and that lady is doing quite well with big foot porn. 

   My point is, being hardworking and prolific just *might* matter as much, and often more, than talent.   Even if you are talented, it seems to me working for one of the big guns can not last forever as you will feel stifled over time, and it seems the big guns draw in bureaucrats and very smedium talents to be able to get a 'guaranteed' paycheck.    So when someone points to an exception (and this is what I used to tell students training BJJ), and then asks what they should do as an average person, I always say... work your ass off to not be average.

This.

Take the Pundit road and start writting your own "zine" but instead of articles give me value for my money. Tables, shit loads of tables, new spells, new weapons, classes, etc.

If you take the time to make it good you can generate residual income forever.

Now take those same tables, etc and boom, you already have the fundations for a new spin on a game.

A lot of the people making money in RPGs these days are getting it via Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/search?q=Rpg

You notice how many of them are mapmakers specializing in VTTs?