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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgbrowning" data-source="post: 1149693" data-attributes="member: 5724">Actually, it is the writers problem. If he expects me to choose to pay him the same while I'm making less for my effort, I'm not going to hire him.Again, I simply don't think you're understanding me. The value of the writers words is solely based upon how much money those words can make on the market. Words that make $5 are not as vauable as words that make $500, even if they are exactly the same words. The value is not based upon the effort required to make the product, it is based upon how much money can be made off that effort.I mean, you're not suggesting that a publisher shouldn't pay J.K. Rowling more than me for my fantasy novel, right, even if we used the same words? Her value is based upon how much she sells, not the quality nor effort involved. I think that's an important distiction to make. When I say "value" i mean "profitability." The more profitability a product has the more "valuable" it is. I'm not talking esthetics or anything here, I'm talking business.Of course, the writer never writes for what he thinks isn't worth it, just as the publisher never pays for what he thinks isn't worth it. That's the same in every business.Happens all the time in manufacturing as well. Example 1: I build houses. If i buy all my supplies from one company, they'll let me pay them less for the exact same product than they'll charge to some guy who only ocassionlly buys things from them. I'm paying them less for the same amount of work because their return is more overall. Example 2: International trade. Suppliers get paid less for the same matrial in different countries all the time. The same product produced in the USA and then bought by someone in canada who then sells it to the canadian public will cost slightly less than the american who buys it and then sells it to americans. One of the reasons for this is the change in market. Medicine is a big example, even outside any form of governmental assistance by the individual countries. From personal experience, getting american made medicine in India through a private doctor is much cheeper (I payed $10 for a $75 treatment of Cipro.) The manufactorer gets paid different amounts for their work depending on which market they sell their product. Theoretically it would be something like this: Cipro sells to hospitals and pharmacies for $40 in america, $38 in canada, $15 in mexico, and $5 in India.The real value of any product is based upon the amount of money generated by that product when it sells minus expenses to make it. Just because RPG writers are used to getting 3 cents a word in one market doesn't mean they should expect that in another.To that I have to ask, how much are they paying themselves? Are the publishers then the ones that are expected to get paid less for their same efforts, even though they pay the artist and the writer the same? How unfair of the writers and artists to expect me to pay myself less when they won't do it themselves. If I'm going to put out a PDF and do almost the same amount of work it takes to put out a print product I should, by your reckoning, be paid the same as if I was putting out a print product.Of course, I won't get paid the same, because I won't sell as much. Why do you expect the publisher to accept less pay for the same amount of work when you refuse to expect the writers and artists to do the same?Somebody's not making the same amount of money for the same amount of effort because the PDF market simply won't bear it. I'm saying that difference should be spread out, rather than solely born by the publisher.joe b.</blockquote>

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