LOL Tony,  I aint no Adam Wilder. 

..and he still builds, his photo etch DVD is all him building. I know of other 'big names' who don't build and just paint but I'm not so sure Adam is one of them.

It certainly is.

And publishing houses like Osprey pay their authors royalties, so if after the first ten thousand run of books sell off in three years, you get another check when the second run of ten thousand books is printed. Even if it's only .79 cents a book royalty, that's almost another eight grand in your pocket.

Modelers like Miguel Jimenez and Adam Wilder etc. certainly aren't flying around the world on their own dime and giving seminars to model clubs out of the kindness of their heart.    Every time an Adam Wilder DVD sells, for the next twenty or thirty years, he gets paid.

Then there is the pattern maker. What do you think Charlie Pritchett makes when he sells yet another master to Verlinden? He certainly isn't doing it for free pizza and a two liter bottle of Pepsi. Verlinden stands to make tens of thousands of dollars off that master, but it might cost them a couple grand to get it. if he makes a pattern or two a month...

There's money in it, just like anything.

Heck there's money in the ground if you wanna put the effort in the digging.  ;D