From The Authors Guild:
The Authors Guild, the nation’s largest and oldest nonprofit professional association for published writers and journalists, today issued a report, “The Profession of Author in the 21st Century,” detailing the underlying social, economic and technological factors contributing to the ongoing decline of author incomes.
“For much of literary history, only the most privileged—those with wealth and leisure and education—could hope to publish. The 20th century created laws and practices, however, that allowed many [American] writers to earn a living, and as a result, an explosion of important books were published—by women, by authors of color, and others once shut out of authorship by financial need,” states Christine Larson, Ph.D., author of the report and an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Colorado, who studies the impact of technology on media workers and culture industries. “But the days of authors supporting themselves from writing may be coming to an end. The changing economy of publishing today means that reliable income and time—the metaphorical room for writing—are increasingly out of reach for many authors.”
. . . .
Below are four meaningful takeaways from the commissioned report:
- It’s harder to make a living as an author now than in the past. Indeed, writing incomes have dropped by 24% since 2013. Three major factors account for this trend:
- Fewer Americans read books than ever before, as consumers increasingly turn to screens for news and entertainment—just 53% of Americans say they read books for pleasure down from 57% in 2002 according to the NEA.
- Amazon’s introduction of the Kindle, along with online physical book buying, precipitated a devaluing of books overall, while its current pricing practices eat into authors’ advances and royalties.
- The mass shuttering of more than 2,000 U.S. newspapers, as well as the loss of print and online magazines and news sites, has resulted in fewer opportunities for authors and journalists to supplement their book earnings with short stories, essays, book reviews and other literary or critical content.
- Half of full-time authors earn less than the federal poverty level of $12,488. Literary authors are the hardest hit, experiencing a 46% drop in their book-related income in just five years. Other relevant data:
- 80% of all authors earn less than what most people would consider a living wage. Authorhood is not a conventional, salary-paying career. Most authors patch together other forms of income, from teaching to full-time day jobs in a wide variety of fields. The profession of author signifies the broader challenges of the “gig economy,” where more and more people juggle multiple part-time jobs and contract work and receive no employee benefits.
- Authors of color earn half the median income of white authors (and the gap seems to have grown in the past five years).Taken together with the fact that 85% of editors are white, this finding has troubling implications for equality of voice in book publishing.
- Authors are expected to do what publishers once did—market their own books. Authors spend a full day per week promoting their books, which takes them away from writing and results in longer stretches between new books being published and lean years for many writers.
- Self-publishing income is growing rapidly, but still remains very small compared to traditional publishing. While the median income of self-published authors increased by 85% over the past four years, led largely by the success of e-romance novels, self-published authors still earn 80% less than traditionally published authors. Part of the problem is that supply far outstrips demand; Bowker reports more than 1.68 million self-published book titles in 2018, up 40% from the year before.
Link to the rest at The Authors Guild
PG isn’t certain where TAG obtains its income information for indie authors, but PG knows far more than one author who was formerly traditionally-published who has switched to self-publishing because she/he could earn far more money from self-publishing.
Additionally, just like in traditional publishing, there are tiers of sales/income earned by books and authors in indie publishing. In traditional publishing, the authors in the top tier earn far more than those farther down the hierarchy, the same sort of distribution is present in self-publishing (as well as in a great many other human endeavors). The top 1% make a great deal of money, the top 10% make very nice money, the next 20% do pretty well and the bottom 70% don’t do quite as well.
. . . .
“Writers aren’t special.” Exactly. Being a writer is like being a carpenter or a plumber or a lawyer or a cop. It’s just what we do. Those who love it keep doing it.
Most authors patch together other forms of income, from teaching to full-time day jobs in a wide variety of fields.
A full-time day job? OK. Who cares? Zillions of people have full-time day jobs. Writers aren’t special.
Or, perhaps teachers write part-time?