The Business: A Reminder That Writing Is Not Location-Dependent Anymore

First, the Pundit's video from the other day.

He's right, the good of tabletop RPGs cannot be killed by the Death Cult. What will die is the business of the medium, which will collapse under the Death Cult's burdensome bullshit.

Only the old-timers will remain, like Palladium Books (who's now running their 2021 XMas Grab Bag sale; best deal for traditionally published product going at a 2:1 deal), and those that already retreated back to the cottage industry scale of operation like (yet again) Gonnerman and (to a lesser extent) Alexander Macris.

That said, I'm going to redirect your attention to the Pundit.

He's making a good living designing and writing tabletop RPG products. He does this by making First World money, but living in a Third World country; he's a Canadian expatriate that has resideded in Uruguay for several years now. (If he doesn't have permanent residence yet, I'll be surprised; I think he qualifies.)

The trendy term for someone able to make a living in a location-independent manner is "digital nomad"; so long as they can have reliable broadband (or better) Internet access, he's able to make his money anywhere in the world.

If you want to do more than Gonnerman, who does what he does as a self-sustaining hobby, and you don't want tabletop RPGs to be a side-hustle (which is how most RPGs are actually considered in business terms) then I would reconsider the need to live in North America (US/Canada) or most of Europe.

The money you make writing Anglophone RPG products is bought mostly by US/CAN dollars, UK pounds, and Euros. All of that goes much further in Central and South America, some parts of Asia, the Carribean, and (if you can swing it; good luck) Africa.

The same is true of writing novels; Pundit sells on Amazon and DriveThruRPG, and he's living fine. Ask him--politely, respecfully, and in good faith--about how he did it if you want to know more. You don't need to be a millionaire to make this work; it just helps a lot.

On a similar note, you can get the same end simply by getting the fuck out of the Bugman Hives and moving to a smaller town or a rural area. The difference will not be nearly so drastic, but you'll still see your income going further in Sioux Falls, South Dakota than Seattle, Washington (or Vancouver, British Columbia). It's why many OldPub authors that aren't actually monied live in rural towns, and why guys like Craig Martell live in Alaska.

Write wherever. Publish worldwide from wherever. Live where your income allows you to live as best you can, so you can keep at it longer and make that long tail longer.

Think about it.