The profits from publishing: authors’ perspective

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From The Bookseller:

Publishers’ figures show authors aren’t getting a fair deal.

. . . .

Authors’ incomes are suffering: a 2013 Authors’ Licensing & Collecting Society (ALCS) study showed professional authors’ typical annual income had fallen by 29%, to £11,000. ALCS is updating the study: we ask all authors to take part.

According to their own published data, the profit margins of the big corporate publishers are increasing. In 2008 Simon & Schuster Inc reported a profit margin of 9%; in 2016 it was 16%. Together, Penguin and Random House now record a margin of 16%, almost double what they recorded separately. You don’t just need to take my word for it. The Bookseller editor Philip Jones believes that trade publishing is now more profitable than it was, possibly by as much as third. That is a spookily similar figure to the 29% by which author incomes have fallen over a similar period. According to Jones, the average profit margin of a corporate publisher is now around 13%, where once it was 10%.

In the Publishers Association’s recent study The Contribution of the Publishing Industry to the UK Economy, consultancy Frontier Economics estimated that in 2016 £161m was paid to authors in advances, royalties and secondary rights revenue, and that the UK publishing industry’s turnover was £5.1bn, of which book sales contributed £3.5bn (69%) and sales of academic journals £1.2bn (24%). That means authors received around 3% of publisher turnover. Even if we take out journal revenue—where authors are, shockingly, paid next to nothing—authors were receiving less than 5% of turnover in the same year that (major) publishers’ profits were around 13%. (That turnover figure includes non-trade publishers, where margins are typically even higher).

. . . .

Society of Authors president Philip Pullman comments: “To allow corporate profits to be so high at a time when author earnings are markedly falling is, apart from anything else, shockingly bad husbandry. It’s perfectly possible to make a good profit and pay a fair return to all of those on whose work, after all, everything else depends. But that’s not happening at the moment. I like every individual editor, designer, marketing and publicity person I deal with; but I don’t like what publishers, corporately, are doing to the ecology of the book world. It’s damaging, and it should change.”

. . . .

Our experience shows that what publishers do pay is going to a smaller pool of authors. That is short-sighted. Figures from Nielsen BookScan, compiled by The Bookseller, show 5,093 authors had sales (not income, of course) more than £10,000 in 2017. Collectively, those authors accounted for 56% of the £1.59bn total books sold. So a big proportion of sales—44%, or £699m—came from authors with sub-five-figure sales. Publishers cannot ignore authors who net 44% of their sales, and authors cannot continue on the earnings they recoup from these sales: an EU study found the average an author earned from lifetime sales of each book was £6,000.

. . . .

“Working-class writers can’t afford to take up a career in writing, it is considered elitist and too risky. Families with uncertain incomes often expect their children to leave education earlier and to support them, and press them to get a ‘proper’ job rather than rely on writing.”

Link to the rest at The Bookseller

9 thoughts on “The profits from publishing: authors’ perspective”

  1. “… but I don’t like what publishers, corporately, are doing to the ecology of the book world. It’s damaging, and it should change.”

    Uh, it is. See 70% comment.

  2. Hmm, have these guys not heard of that internet thingy yet? If used properly it finds routes around problems.

    Not enough publisher slots to get your story to your readers? Writers have been posting stories on the internet since there was one.

    Of late, getting ‘paid’ for writing stories and allowing access to them on the internet has gotten easier.

    Like any type of change, it takes time to get the ball rolling and to get people to accept new ways of doing things and to to turn away from old ideas, but it is happening.

    And the publishers of old are being forced to notice these changes. Yes, they are still getting more offerings from writers than they could publish even if they wanted to – but there are so many more that are no longer offering them the chance to read it before offering it to their readers by a way that skips those publishers – yet makes those writers some money. Money that those publishers aren’t getting a cut of. Money those publishers can’t control because they have no say of when the story hits the wires – or for how much.

    As was said above, publishers like to pay peanuts and play deep-discount games to pay their writers as little as possible, but the writer now has a chance to make even more per sale while charging less.

    (As far as the 70%, I’m seeing 69% on one of my $2.99 ebooks, but only 52% from a low selling $4.95 ebook – which might be explained be a few sales in the few areas that are 35% no matter if you’re doing the 35% or 70% options…)

  3. Publishers cannot ignore authors who net 44% of their sales, and authors cannot continue on the earnings they recoup from these sales: an EU study found the average an author earned from lifetime sales of each book was £6,000.

    Why can’t the publishers ignore the 44%? And authors who don’t earn enough will do something else. That’s how the rest of the economy works.

    The supply is so large authors are in no position to demand more. If the supply
    decreases,that will change.

    With no barriers to entry, average author earnings will always be low. If authors are paid more, more authors enter the market. That pushes down the averages.

    Meanwhile, the Amazon KDP Upload Button is a click away.

  4. I can just imagine a Big5 exec: “Waaah. It’s all the fault of Amazon and self-publishing. If people weren’t self-publishing we wouldn’t have to shaft our existing authors.”

  5. It doesn’t do any harm to mention that 70% yet again. Where are these prehistoric businesses planning to get their new authors from as their existing loyalist writers who have known nothing else and won’t change cease to write? It seems to make zero sense for any author to sign one of their standard contracts.

    • It seems to make zero sense for any author to sign one of their standard contracts.

      Tastes, preferences, and values vary. Following the traditional publishing path may not be attractive to me, but it is attractive to many. It’s likely they are evaluating the traditional option using a standard I don’t use because they have values I don’t have. It is rare for people to do things when they see no benefit.

      • They see benefits.
        On paper. 🙂

        When they don’t materialize in practice, they look for scapegoats.
        It’s easier to whine than reevaluate and adapt. Especially when the old ways used to work… Sort of… Once upon a time…

        • It’s easier to whine than reevaluate and adapt.

          Adapting would mean changing their values. They don’t want to be like us. That’s fine.

          Independents will probably follow the same path as traditionally published authors followed. It’s a common behavior. Insist everyone be like them and value what they value.

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