One thing sort of hinted at but not explicitly mentioned is that the field you speak in makes a significant difference, especially at the lower end (really famous people will make out well in any case). If you can get onto the corporate speaking circuit, doing tutorials and lectures at corporate retreats, for example, there is a lot of that work, and it pays fairly well. This usually requires a sort of "pop" or "business" angle on your speaking. Even a very engaging lecture about advanced mathematics is not going to get you invited to most corporate retreats, but a lightly mathematically tinged anecdote, or a more business-focused lecture about using statistics to analyze markets, might do so.
I've noticed in game-design, for example, that over the past 1-2 years by far the best way to go if you want to make money speaking is to get into "gamification", talking about how companies can use game mechanics and badges for engagement and that kind of thing. Even if you're a better speaker when talking about actual game-design, the markets are just very differently sized, so it's more lucrative to give an "ok" talk about gamification (lots of clients) than a great talk about game-design (many fewer clients, unless you're Will Wright level).
This usually requires a sort of "pop" or "business" angle on your speaking.
An anecdote: I got an email after my Old Spice speech from somebody who charges $30k a speech. He said "That was good, topical, and funny. If you want to do more like that, get an agent. You will get gigs."
>To put the numbers so far in this chapter in perspective, the average adult on planet Earth earns $8,200 a year (U.S. dollars). The average American makes about $45,000. Since you see your paycheck, you know exactly where you stand.
Bit of a tangential nitpick: I don't like that he used the averages here--I think he should have used the medians. Which, for Earth, is about $850 [0] and, for U.S.A., is about $30k-50k [0,1]. Even so, a single number doesn't give you a very good picture of the actual wealth distribution, but the median is better than the average (for chrissake!) in this case.
Edit: And, overall, I found the excerpt to be rather fluffy, feel-goody, and sparse on content. Maybe I'm cheating here, but it seems like the kind of text that would make a fine talk, but a vacuous essay.
I wonder if there is any value in the comments from the second time around or if rereading the first set of comments is sufficient? Maybe a double blind study is neccessary.
Well he also seems to forget the amount of effort but in by the speaker. Of course a more famous one will be paid more, (s)he has spent thousands of hours doing appearances, books, etc all to gain some notoriety, all without the assurance it will pay off or come back to them some day. 30k an hour just isn't accurate if you see all the effort over the years to pull it off and the pre and post work needed to be done per speaking engagement.
With limited exceptions when a buyer and seller mutually agree to trade time for money I am of the opinion that is a moral win for both sides. "You talk, we pay" sounds a lot more like the clearly acceptable "You code, we pay" than it does any of the exceptions.
er, I don't see what is ethically wrong with it if the organizers are charging people to attend - like Scott says, the organizers can make $250k from tickets to see him speak.
What is ethically 'troublesome' is when conference organizers like O'Reilly (but others do it, they just happen to be hosting the post) take pay-for-play speakers at their conferences but don't disclose.
In other words, the speakers pay the conference organizers AND the attendees are paying too. I have no problem with speakers being paid, in fact it increases the chances of high-value speakers attending.
This only adds up if you think it makes sense for some many individuals to be allocated 10000x more resources for their leisure while the majority scrape to get by.
Its a very primitive belief system that actually predates social Darwinism and served as the inspiration for it.
In order to have an actual civilization, we will need to start to realize the differences between humans and common animals.
I've noticed in game-design, for example, that over the past 1-2 years by far the best way to go if you want to make money speaking is to get into "gamification", talking about how companies can use game mechanics and badges for engagement and that kind of thing. Even if you're a better speaker when talking about actual game-design, the markets are just very differently sized, so it's more lucrative to give an "ok" talk about gamification (lots of clients) than a great talk about game-design (many fewer clients, unless you're Will Wright level).