I thought his wife was a Doctor and Mac Golden was the lawyer? Either way, I know C&C makes some money, since they used profits to buy their printing/binding machines, which cost over 30 grand, and I know they have stated they make a living off of what they do.
I was pretty sure it was the other way around, based on conversations with Gary and Gail, though I might not be remembering correctly.
In any event, I wasn't specifically targeting TLG but the industry in general. I was trying to show you that "profit" and "success" are very relative terms. If what I say is true, I think anybody's income would be hurt if the significant other died or lost their job.
In general, profit too can be on the books, but not enough economic profit to make things viable. Profit could be after expenses $100.00. If the salaries aren't included as expenses, than a profit could be very meager indeed. Most of the companies aren't going to show use their balance sheets--it's not our business unless they are publically traded.
But I'll bet if you asked your favorite third party publisher these questions--What is your salary from this business? Do you have a day job or other income to supplement? Does your spouse or significant other have a day job? Do you have anybody financing your living expenses like a family member? Assuming they'd answer--It probably wouldn't be pretty.
But I wanted to bring this up because this is very true of a a lot of companies. It's even easier today to be a one man shop, address customers with the "editorial "we" used in communication, make PR statements, etc. But the reality of Tabletop RPGs is a lot different. And I think we need to remind ourselves of that at times. We may have a large number of publishers but I think most are more serf-like than king-like, and that's a bit of a shame from an economic standpoint.
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