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Message: <blockquote data-quote="OwenK.C.Stephens" data-source="post: 7658959" data-attributes="member: 6789999">If the upper end rates (7-10 cents/word) shock you, then yes the answer is the market doesn't support higher rates than that. The vast majority of freelance game writers cannot make a full-time living at that rate. I was a full-time freelancer for many years, and managed to buy a house, put my wife through college, and make a living, but it wasn't easy.No more than double, and generally no more than 25% to 50% more, though that varies by company.There are, of course, many MANY more expenses than writing and paying the publisher. You need an editor, a layout artist, and art. If you are dealing with print books, printing is the biggest expense, and generally warehousing and shipping are #2 and #3. For bigger companies you have to pay the salaries of people doing taxes, payroll, customer service, and so on. For smaller, pdf-only publishers sales numbers are often so small the author makes more than the publisher (though again, it varies by company).The only thing stopping them is putting in the time and effort, and having the needed skills. However, it's worth noting that I am bombarded with people desperate to get into game writing who ask if I'll just edit and publish them for free, for love of the game. So there is never going to be a shortage of people willing to work cheap, which reduces the pressure on publishers to pay more. (See my post on exploitative pay rates, above, for my thoughts on the subject).It can be done, I have done it. But it requires a lot more work than taking the same skills and making a living sell ad copy to websites through cold-calling offers (for example).There's a reason people who start as game designers and then begin to sell a few novels or work for computer companies almost never got back to tabletop RPG writing, and it's not because novelists and computer game designers are particularly wealthy.</blockquote>

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