I'm just now catching up on a silly controversy that's apparently been festering for a few days and which looks like it's good for two or three more. Our pal Neil Gaiman gave a speech recently at a library. It got out how much he was paid. A couple of folks got indignant over the amount he charged, objecting as if Neil had pulled out a .357 Magnum, pointed it at some elderly librarian lady and forced her to fork over the loot. Neil should not have had to write this piece explaining his reasons (and citing the vast amounts of pro bono speaking he does) but he did, and that oughta end it for anyone with a genuine desire to understand how this kind of thing works. In case it doesn't…
In the 41 years I've been a freelance writer, I've witnessed loads of misunderstanding — some of it quite innocent and understandable — about the lifestyle. Folks who are consistently paid X dollars per hour for what they do sometimes don't get that we aren't; that we make a lot of money for some things, not very much for others, nothing at all for (often) most of what we do…and that maybe, if we're lucky, it averages out to X per hour. If you just hear what one thing paid, you're seeing a tiny piece of the jigsaw.
Determining what some job, be it writing or speaking or creating anything, is "worth" is difficult. I'm not saying it can't be done. It is done — all the time — but it's subjective and even in full possession of more information than any spectator, we have trouble with it. Neil probably can't even fairly gauge what his appearance was "worth" to the library that sought him out, heard his price and wrote a check. You can tally how many people showed at the door. Harder to assess is the value to the institution's rep, to fulfilling a certain amount of its Mission Statement, to having the talk broadcast on radio, etc. Is the library complaining? I don't know that they are. If they are, then maybe someone shouldn't have said yes to Neil's apparently standard honorarium. I believe him when he says he prices his talks so he won't wind up doing too many of them…and I know for a fact that he often lectures for free and/or donates fees to good causes.
I think I've told this story elsewhere on this blog but one time, my pal Sergio was selling a drawing of his for…I don't recall. Let's say $200. A possibly-interested customer asked him how long the drawing had taken him and Sergio said, "Oh, about a half-hour." The browser gasped and said, "You expect me to pay you $200 for a half-hour of work?" To which Sergio replied, "No, you're paying me for the thirty years it took me to learn how to do that in half an hour." The worth cannot be figured the same way you figure out how to pay the kid who mows your lawn. If you hire Neil Gaiman to come lecture in your venue, you're not paying him for the exact number of hours it takes him to come and talk. You're buying the heat, the excitement, the joy, the prestige — whatever the reason was you wanted him — of having Neil Gaiman come and talk. And yes, he could charge less…but if he did, he couldn't do all those lectures for charity, couldn't donate speaker fees to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and he'd be booked solid for speaking engagements and wouldn't have time to (a) write the next Neil Gaiman book or even (b) come to your building to discourse.
On balance, weighing this against that, the pricing system usually all makes fiduciary sense for the freelancer and for those who pay him or her. I'm sure it does for Neil. He doesn't deserve any grief whatsoever for setting his price for those willing to pay it. He shouldn't even have to take the time to explain that.