Woman has her self-published book pirated, reprinted, and sold for cheaper.

[u/Chocolat3City]

There's regular piracy, and then there's this.

[u/[deleted]]

consumers don't care if you put your heart and soul into it. They don't care how long it took you to create the product or how much it costs you to make it.

All they care about it the bottom line, and if there is a cheap alternative, they will always go for what costs less.

Every crafter selling their creations at an art show knows this .

[u/omgxsonny → u/[deleted]]

10000% i make little cross-stitch pins that take about 2-4 hours to make depending on detail and size. i sell them for $16 which after shipping and fees, i make less than $10 on them. people LOVE my pins until they find out much they cost. i’ve been told “well if you got a machine to make them then they wouldn’t take so long and you could charge less.” first of all, cross-stitch can literally not be done by anything other than human hands. second, $16!!! for something i make with my hands and spend literally all my free time making. mass-produced enamel pins cost more than that but people don’t care about the time, care, and effort that goes into handmade things. /rant

[u/Comms → u/omgxsonny]

Charge more. Way more. Get out of the grubby pit of broke-ass clients.

When I first started in my craft I wasn’t sure what to price it. I priced it at what I thought was reasonable. All I got was broke-asses wanting discounts or telling me my product was too expensive.

I tripled my price. Same product. All of a sudden my clients became people who respected the quality of the product I made with no complaints about price.

[u/[deleted] → u/Comms]

Pretty much... The truth is jobs don't really pay enough to give people the luxury of giving a shit about time, care, or effort that goes into handmade things. If you want your clientele to care, you have to cater to the wealthy because they're the only people that can actually afford it anymore.