This is a very interesting article on why per-word rates are so low for writers for tabletop RPGS.
Pie for everyone, just sliced very thinly: The economics of RPG book production http://t.co/c3FZAhIrdV by @simonjrogers
— Pelgrane Press Ltd (@PelgranePress) February 13, 2015
Short version: hobbyist market, consumer price expectations, high overhead, and lots of people willing to work on the cheap in exchange for having their name in a book. Don’t underestimate that last one: I got stiffed out of a flat-rate commission by one game company* – was, in fact, half-expecting it – and I still framed the first page of the adventure supplement that I had written and put it up on the wall. Because it’s different somehow when you don’t get paid even though you’re supposed to than it is when you don’t get paid because you worked for free. Psychology, or some such.
Moe Lane
*Which will remain nameless, because, hey, they might actually still pay me at some point.
It’s one reason I stopped writing for the hobby game industry: the per word rates for freelancers just haven’t changed much since the 1930s, and the economics of the industry makes that seem unlikely to change.