I pointed out that it's one thing when you're dealing with a mature or experienced adult who has some sense of business. But frankly, we don't ask people who know better to take a cut rate price. We only take advantage of the newbies and desperate. We justify it by saying they know what they're doing, but do they? No. Anybody pricing at $50 for more than one introductory cover, doesn't know what they're doing, businesswise. I'm sorry, but that's not a sustainable price, unless they are doing something entirely automatic, like slapping some fonts on some stock art, or selling you work they already did and wrote off as a loss.
I don't remember me or anyone else asking him to charge cut rate prices for his work. Whenever someone asks an artist or writer to work for free or very little most of us come down on that person like a ton of bricks. No one took advantage of him or any other artist. Again, as a community a lot of us go out of our way to steer newbies away from danger like spending too much money or charging too little. That said, if someone runs a business and they set a price they can't sustain that is not their customers fault especially if their customers and the people around them say they should charge more. It might be cynical of me to say this but I imagine Ronnell would have responded differently if his books weren't doing well right now.
And for that matter, it's not the fault of the rest of us for unthinkingly taking advantage of a deal... except this is the warning. This is the thing that should cause the rest of us to rethink our priorities. Even if Maria didn't get at all what she paid for, as a group, we did. We were paying rock bottom for high talent, which means we aren't paying for maturity, responsibility or business sense.
I think a lot of us have our priorities straight. In business, a certain level of maturity is assumed. When we enter into business with someone we are paying for goods and services. We expect the job to be done. It's not just about talent. You could be very talented but if you're unwilling / unable to communicate with a client or meet a deadline, most will take my business elsewhere unless they are willing to put up with that sort of thing.
Ask some people around what they have paid for their covers. You'll get numbers ranging from free and do-it-yourself covers to $500 or more. Obviously, people are willing to pay higher prices for covers with custom artwork and lettering. I don't think anyone expects to pay $50 for a cover with custom artwork and as far as I know there have been no attempts to ask artists to charge low prices for such cover.
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