The author says it's not about the money, but money was only one half of the verbal contract, the half that was actually delivered, and the author spends the en

The author says it's not about the money, but money was only one half of the verbal contract, the half that was actually delivered, and the author spends the entire article talking about the money half. For me, the real issue for an artist that is actually not talking about the money would be the part of the verbal contract that was not fulfilled: Some type of promotional support for the author's other works. Exposure of that work the hundreds of millions of people seems like it would have a staggeringly massive non-monetary value (and in fact could have led to significant monetary gain). Instead though, the author goes to great pains to say it wasn't about the money while mostly talking about the money.