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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ProgBard" data-source="post: 6833824" data-attributes="member: 6803722">So I'm one of the fortunate few who's done pretty well with a PWYW item on the DMGuild (as in a silver seller, well reviewed and rated, made the top fifteen for the last few weeks). It's made folding money - not pay-the-bills money, but not just pizza money, either. I'd estimate 15-20% of downloads have been paying, and I've been lucky enough to have both ratings and reviews in the double digits, with at least one review of the kind that every creator hopes the criticism gods will bring them if they've been good - an ideal customer who really gets the philosophy behind the product.I would guess it's done as well as it has because it successfully exploited an empty niche in the market, and it probably doesn't hurt that I have experience in writing, editing, and formatting that served me well in turning an idea into a coherent product. I expect the time will come in the not-too-distant future that the customer population it serves will more or less have been exploited, and it will go into its long-tail phase. And that will be okay too.I have a hunch, on no particularly solid evidence, that making it PWYW has given it a broader footprint than it would have had otherwise. I'm okay with that meaning that some people get it without reaching into their pockets. It was intended to be in part a gift to the community of gamers, because I think it's useful and worth sharing. I won't lie that it's also nice to have it as a vector to get my name out, but I'm not really making it part of anything so formal as a "marketing strategy." Approaching it this way makes me intensely grateful and humbled by the number of people who have felt it worth paying for. (I also have the luxury that I don't need to make my living doing this, and don't expect to. I try to be aware of the privilege this affords me.)But - speaking as someone who has also, from time to time, played music for a public audience - this is not the same thing as "playing for exposure." This is playing for tips. There is a vast, vast difference between the two. And the reality of the creative trades is that you start out playing for tips*, probably at someone else's show. In that light, I'm happy to look at the DMGuild as the huge ongoing open mic of 5e, where from time to time you're lucky enough, if you have the chops, to get a cut of the take.None of that means that I don't value my work. I value it a great deal. If the world were as I would have it, I would be getting the income of my current day job for making up stories and adventures and writing quirky folksongs in tricky time signatures. That's not the world we got, though; almost no one gets to do that. Putting my foot down and insisting I deserve it boots me nothing. (I deserve a lot of things, and am thankful to the Mystery that I haven't received all of them.) So I get to make the choice between participating on the terms I can, or waiting until the universe realigns to my perfect expectations of rewarding me what I'm worth. Under the circumstances, I'm happy to see what's behind Door A.And here's something else to consider: In the game writing field, we are all facing the Crafter's Dilemma. To illustrate, one of my other hobbies is crochet. I make scarves and hats; they're nice. Every once in a while someone will see one of them and say, "You should sell these!" But here's the thing: I can't possibly charge what they're worth. Between materials and the time I put into them, even paying myself minimum wage, no one would ever pay what the calculation comes out to. A gift economy is the only thing that makes sense.Now, the parallel doesn't quite hold up, because an infinitely-reproducible PDF might someday pay out. But enough to recoup the hours and hours and hours I put into writing and layout and design and gods help me, maybe even art? I'm not holding my breath. Which doesn't mean I'll never put one out with a fixed price tag - but that and PWYW are points on a continuum, not different scenarios.*(Trade secret: you are always playing for tips.)</blockquote>

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