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"I never expected a money success," said Tolkien, pacing the room, as he does constantly when he speaks. "In fact, I never even thought of commercial publication when I wrote The Hobbit back in the Thirties.
"It all began when I was reading exam papers to earn a bit of extra money. That was agony. One of the tragedies of the underpaid professor is that he has to do menial jobs. He is expected to maintain a certain position and to send his children to good schools. Well, one day I came to a blank page in an exam book and I scribbled on it. 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
The piece is a pleasant read about the greatest fantasy writer of all time.
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JRR Tolkien: 'I Never Expected a Money Success'
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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday October 29 2015, @12:52AM
Say what you will about the Tolkiens, but they have continued to work on the LOTR trilogy for decades. Mostly fixing mistakes that the editors and typesetters made, occasionally fixing problems that JRR made when he was originally writing the books. If you've read the earlier editions and then come back and read the 50th anniversary edition, it's a huge improvement.
There are authors and folks who coast, but when he was still alive, JRR spent a lot of time fixing and correcting the errors that had crept in.
As far as plumbers go, nothing is stopping them from working on a license basis where they continue to be paid for years after they complete the service. They don't do it because it makes no sense to have somebody send them a penny or two every month for continued use of the plumbing.
It never ceases to amaze me how people deliberately misunderstand the system. An author can usually opt for a lump sum payment if they want to. It's just that it's not normally a good deal for either side. You never know how much the work is going to be worth, so both parties risk leaving a lot of money on the table. Royalties are a form of performance pay. You get paid for the books that sell and the better they sell the more you make. Seems reasonable to me. I'm not even sure how you would do that with plumbing and still have something that works.
(Score: 2) by romlok on Thursday October 29 2015, @09:35AM
It actually could make sense for plumbers, too: An excellent plumber may fix a problem such that it doesn't reoccur for 20 years. Whereas a poor plumber may only charge half as much, but fix the problem such that it reappears after only six months.
With monthly royalty payments, rather than a fixed up-front sum, a home-owner not qualified to judge plumbing repair quality can be more certain that they pay appropriately for the quality of the work done.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday October 29 2015, @02:55PM
I suppose, but the only times I've heard of that happening were with commercial servicing agreements. That generally works because the scale of the business is much larger. Having a contract for somebody to service the elevators or the HVAC system makes sense, but when plumbing is done correctly, it makes relatively little sense to spread the payments over many years and deal with the interest rates on anything that had to be borrowed.
Probably the closest thing I've seen in the residential market is one of those home warranties. Which is essentially a form of insurance.