Some, yes, but it is not a lot of money, per se, that is needed to manufacture the statuettes. The bulk of the profits go to the hosting organization and stay there, which is usually tens of thousands of dollars. In DC’s case it was eighty thousand dollars. In others it may be closer to forty thousand dollars, on average. It is a cash cow, and usually designed to put more money into local coffers. I know WSFA is still sitting on giant gobs of cash from the last time they hosted World Fantasy, back in 2003. The financials used to be public and online, but I think it was somewhere in the area of thirty thousand dollars, maybe forty? (Yes, the WSFA Journal confirms this, now that I have checked). In any case most of the money these days comes from two major sources: membership fees, and the souvenir book. Rina really brought home the bacon with the latter, in 2014. So much money . . . In any case the hosting organizations honestly work at the behest of the WFC board, or Hartwell originally, so assigning money to the awards should not be a major issue. It could be even a requirement, much like the harassment policies, as part of their proposals to the board, with this much money assigned . . .
no subject