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Message: <blockquote data-quote="daranp" data-source="post: 6847558" data-attributes="member: 6677750">Self Publishing – How much are your products worth?After reading through <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?479049-Self-Publishing-What-s-An-Artist-Worth" target="_blank">SelfPublishing – What's an artist worth?</a> I was wording a reply that basically supported the notion that I do not believe that anyone should work for free. This opinion is based on the fact that I've worked in print and publishing for many years and understand and value the work produced by all contributors to the process –writers, artists, designers, editors, proof readers, printers and distributors etc. I've had my fare share of being asked to produce material at “mates rates” or just to help get people going... and it is for this reason, as an aspiring writer and publisher of RPG products myself, that I am attempting to raise funds over at KickStarter to help pay for illustrations for my next project In the Shadow of Wraiths: <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paraspace/awakened-earth-in-the-shadow-of-wraiths" target="_blank">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paraspace/awakened-earth-in-the-shadow-of-wraiths</a>It is not an easy task and involves many hours of hard work. Whilst I certainly have the passion, drive and commitment, unfortunately, I do not (yet) make a living from this hobby. That aside, I never posted my reply to that thread as I kept coming back to a nagging issue that, actually, many of us, as aspiring writers and publishers, seem to work for free all the time. Most of us have day jobs and do this as and when we can, because we love it – perhaps just dreaming that one day we will be able to pay the rent from the passion we have for the material we write. It therefore struck me that the same topic of debate could be had for those of us within or trying to break into this industry: Self Publishing – How much are your products worth?When I started gaming back in '82, there was no internet and certainly no free products. Not even quick-starts or trial versions. In the UK, we had very limited means of finding out about new products and rarely a chance to play before purchase. Now, of course, things have drastically changed. Let's face it, the internet is so full of free RPG material that, if you never purchased another product again, you could still never get through it all in a life time.So my questions to the community at large (both buyers and sellers) are, should we, as aspiring writers or publishers, whether as a blog, article, advice, adventure, monster or magic item etc. be producing our work for free? Do we feel that the amount of freely available material means that people are generally less inclined to purchase products or, certainly, products of a particular type e.g. a book of magic items or new spells? Does the market-place now demand that any new writer or publisher must have tried and tested material in the “free arena” before they have a hope of graduating into sales?</blockquote>

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