Making money, making a living

[Andrew Morris]

The books you are selling are not your art. They're your medium for expression, not the expression.

The price of your books doesn't have anything to do with the value of your art. If that was true, nobody could afford Shakespeare. I can buy a poster of a van Gogh painting for $15. That's not the value of his art, it's the value of the poster.

I totally agree. I think this is what's been missing from most of the discussion on this topic, and why I've been shaking my head, not understanding most of the posters' opinions.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

I'll add emphasis to what Tony said above because I'm less polite than he is:

Pricing at what the market will bear is the only reasonable strategy for economic viability of a product. If that price makes it so you can't make as much money as you need to make on the project, you can't do it unless you want to pay for having people play your game. If you charge more than the market will bear, people won't buy it and you can lower your price.

Any attempt at making up a value based on anything else is economic fiction.

Artists don't sell their ideas. They sell the expression of their ideas. Just like engineers don't sell their ideas, they sell the expressions.

What you buy when you buy a poster is the value of a piece of art, amortized over thousands of poster sales, on top of other value that the owners get from the ownership of the original.

Look, this is not an argument unique to RPGs. This is a discussion that's been going on for the entire Modern period among artists, who pour everything they've got into their art and craft, and a public that believes that it should be enough that they give everything and get a reputation for it.

Now, of course, the monetary value of a piece of art has little to do with its value as a piece of art. But the logical conclusion of that idea is not that artists shouldn't get paid. It's that they should get paid whatever they can, just like everyone else.

By undercharging — and this is to those of you who do it on purpose, or out of the fear of overcharging — you undersell yourself and you deflate a maket.

To those of you who charge what you can because you feel it's what you can get for your work, excellent on you. If you think, "would I make less if I charged a dollar more?" and the answer is yes, then you're doing it right, in my book.

... and as for this being a matter of supply and demand, we don't know what the demand is yet. Sorcerer is still selling, and so is Dogs. We've never saturated a market with our works, so the discussion is moot until we have some data.

[contracycle]

Any attempt at making up a value based on anything else is economic fiction.

Thats an ideological claim, and not very sound.

By undercharging — and this is to those of you who do it on purpose, or out of the fear of overcharging — you undersell yourself and you deflate a maket.

So what?  Alls fair in love war and business according to default capitalist theology.  Its a price war, thats all.

I agree with your other points.

[Jasper Polane]

So what?  Alls fair in love war and business according to default capitalist theology.  Its a price war, thats all.

I agree. It's called competition.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

In the interest of not being a total ogre, I decided to let this thread proceed to see whether a discussion beyond "my emotions" would develop.

I do think everyone has been sufficiently non-confrontational and forthcoming to make it a decent read. So thanks to everyone. I'm not moderating anyone's behavior or input at the courtesy level.

However, now that we're onto the second page, I don't think the topic has developed into discourse. It's basically a "show ideological peepee" exercise.

Some older threads exist which lay out a lot of options and principles regarding the issue, without preferences ruling the roost, so I invite people to search a bit, or for someone to hunt down a slew of'em, such as the threads Ryan Dancey contributed to. I'm a little strapped for time at the moment.

Posting those links here would be a nice service. Aside from that, I think it's time to call this one closed. People should take any desire to continue comparing "what I feel" are encouraged to do so privately or on personal sites like blogs.

Best,
Ron

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

OK, then, here's a little reading for everyone:

Luke talks about raising his prices last year and hilarity ensues:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=11266.0

Ryan speaks about sustainable pricing with sexy results:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=11290.0

There's more, but I gotta go grocery shopping. Let's start with that, then come back to the thread after we've agreed.

However, unlike Ron, I actually want to know what people feel (and I suspect he doesn't because he's already heard this discussion go around a bunch of times). I don't mind hearing my fellows tell me that something upsets them, particularly when we're talking about buying stuff, which requires a gut reaction.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Those threads say pretty much everything we've been saying here.

I guess I have one thing to say before closing this thread: consider what's said in those threads — particularly Luke's one — about pricing. Consider what Ron and Ryan said about sustainability. And consider what Mearls said about socioeconomic class assumptions.

I'm looking forward to a new thread that's digested that information.

Ron, I consider this thread closed. Can I do that, or do you have to?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Er, except this thread's not mine. It's Ben's. Sorry, I forgot which thread we were in, I guess.

[axonrg]

I simply think that, in a modern capitalistic society, the way that we express how much we value something is how much money we will pay for it.

I have to admit, I think it this is something of a common fallacy. By this measure, Britney Speares is one of the best singer/songwriters of our generation.

When I'm looking around for a new book to buy, for example, I don't turn over and see how much it costs. I read a review in a respectable journal.

In a capitalistic society the quality of a product isalmost irrelevant in pricing; all that matters, surely, is supply and demand? Sometimes supply and demand happily coincide with quality, but more often these days the inverse relationship between price and qualtity seems to hold

[Ron Edwards]

Folks, this thread's on hold until Ben can tell us whether it's done or not.

Sorry if that wasn't clear before.

Best,
Ron

[Ben Lehman]

I think it's pretty much done, yeah.