Unsolicited Writing Advice, no: 16: MONEY. The average (professional, full-time) author earns around £11,000 a year from being published. This sum, never high, has actually gone down over the past 10 years, whereas salaries in the publishing industry, (though not always high) have increased.
This is depressingly true ime. I had a few years of earning well but it has gone down. I’ve gone back to teaching full time now as part time & writing isn’t sustainable (I do have 2 kids to put through the uni cash mill though which I didn’t when o started a decade ago).
Do you think there’s an answer to this? No - authors are never going to be rich - but in an era where they do more and more of the work and publicity they really should be getting a larger slice.
Yep. Get angry, and get organised. We need government to quit cowtowing to robber barons and start legislating protections for creative workers. That's, sadly, only going to happen when enough angry people are holding pointy sticks to their electoral chances.
Putting pressure on publishers for fairer and more transparent contracts helps, as does lobbying for copyright protection. That's why we have organizations like the SoA and the ALCS.
Never ask about the average. It’s distorted by a few really high end cases. ALWAYS demand the median. Which I’m sure is even worse than 11k (and falling). Also, this dynamic is a feature (not a bug) of late stage capitalism; stripping the last wealth from those creating it for the rentiers.
That *was* a median figure.
In my observation: writers' incomes fell off a CLIFF as the internet came forward and piracy copies became a thing/fast followed by the favoring of titles by algorithm. Anyone thinking this is a non-issue is not basing their opinion on the actual figures.
UK publishers making backlist titles over 18 months old firm sale instead of sale or return was catastrophic here. I had 6 or 7 books out, if memory serves, so 2004ish? Those books were bringing in a steady £3k a year. That fell to £300, and then £30 in the next two royalty statements. Memorable!
Wow, I didn’t know that was a thing :/
very few people do...
Oh no. :-( Is that why it's so hard to get hold of anything if you don't catch it as soon as it comes out? - they decided to cut off the long tail?
To save on transportation costs and wastage, when returned books were unsellable - all valid issues and justified at the time as environmentally driven, not just to reduce publishers' costs. But very few people outside the trade are aware, and authors who weren't around at the time rarely know.
How frustrating. :-( Rotten for authors, and sad for readers too.
Wow, that is depressing :(
It was the final nail in the coffin for the old business model which told writers 'if your books find a readership, after 5 or 6 years, your backlist should earn enough royalties for you to give up your day job'. That's dead as a dodo. But I still see creative writing biz people saying this applies.
God yeah. The midlist model is sadly dead
I suspect most writers would make more self publishing. I believe there are books on this, usually self published.
Self-publishing can be quite lucrative for some writers, yes. But it has its own series of challenges.
I've heard 95%+ of authors can't earn enough to quit the day job.
Unless they have independent wealth or a supportive, well-paid partner, it's not usually possible.
That's a shame because a lot of great writers will never get a chance because they don't have the funds.
Is it possible to estimate how much profit both sides (publisher/author) have in percentage terms after deducting all costs and taxes?
I sell books from my market stall & make more than this. It's a slog (on my feet all day today) but gratifying. It connects me to my readers and helps me provide a not strongly literate population with what they want to read. Actually, I'm quite proud! (Could do with making a few more quid, though!)
This figure should act as a warning: being a published author doesn't automatically mean you're going to earn a living that way. It's usually wise to have a Plan B in the form of a day job (many authors keep their day jobs throughout their writing career).
The stories you've read about first-time novelists being signed up for six-figure sums are not typical of the way things work in publishing. And even if you're lucky, and do get such an offer, it isn't like winning the lottery.
First, you'll have to pay tax on your six-figure sum. That might be up to 40%, depending on the sum and the way it's paid out to you. You'll also have to pay your agent their cut of 10-15% for brokering the deal.
Also bear in mind that your initial advance is likely to be for more than one book. (Typically a first book deal is likely to be for two books; the one the publishers have already seen and another one.) When you get the money will depend on when you deliver the book.
And of course, you won't get what's left of your six-figure sum all at once. It will typically come in three installments per book: one-third on delivery, one-third on publication, and one-third on publication of the paperback, around a year after the hardback comes out.
Your royalties (a percentage of sale) go to pay back your initial advance, so you won't get any until enough copies have sold to pay it back. And given the prevalence of piracy, deep discounting, etc. you will have to have sold a LOT of copies to get any royalties at all.
Which means you're going to have to live on that advance for at least five or six years, or as long as it takes to collect all the money you're owed, and for your publishers to recoup your advance. Which, on top of tax, etc. makes that imaginary six-figure sum seem a lot smaller than it first did.
Not to mention that due to the magic of Publisher Accounting, it’s quite possible (and indeed normal) for a book to be profitable for the publisher and yet never “earn out” for the author.
Most don't.
Not hard to do when they're earning three times as much per eBook sale as the author. Break even for the publisher is usually well before the advance is earned out for the author.
But… this is good? Otherwise you would HAVE to earn out, and as most authors never do, we’d all be dropped after the first contract.
Yeah, in recording arts, it's not uncommon for labels to try to squeeze artists they failed to promote and go "you owe us your advance".
And of course, the majority of authors never get even *close* to a six-figure advance. So, yes. Believe in yourself, love what you do, but work that Plan B. Most authors do.
This is just for trad pub. Self-pub authors 'can' earn a monthly income from books. I've been full-time for 10 yrs & writing is my only income. We have to make an initial investment in editing/cover art/marketing. But we retain rights & can make audios & translations. These are passive income for me
Forgive my curiosity, but you mentioned you're full-time, you have 80+ books on Amz, I'm assuming a descend back catalogue is part of the strategy?
My advances,from reputable pubs, have been £500, £1250, £800. 6 weeks salary in my day job for 7 years writing full-time equiv hours, every week, on top of a f/t day job. I make that a salaried rate of 5.3 pence an hour 🤪
Even Anthony Trollope kept his day job as a civil servant.
I always tell people it's the entertainment business. Most people understand the starving artist and waiter-actor tropes. For some reason that doesn't translate naturally in culture to writers.
I thought it was 7k?
That's the latest SofA figures. The median author household earns c £50k IIRC so it is absolutely side hustles or a job and probably a partner working.
But you also have to take into account that SofA is still rather elitist & favours trad over Indie pub. Indie authors can & occasionally do make more. We retain our rights, we can make audiobooks & translations & have multiple income streams for a monthly income -w/out paying an agent/pub a cut.
I'm a member of ALLI too and I'm self publishing my next book. But self-published authors also face costs trad published authors don't.
Trad authors DO incur the same costs but they're all baked into the royalty cut that the publisher takes. If an author is getting, for example, 15%, the publisher is covering the cost of editing, print, marketing and a 100 other expenses with their cut. It costs to publish, but self pub=more control
Agreed: but it's not the easy option some people believe it to be.
I think there's an idealized view of what it means to be a writer- living off advances, writing hit after hit. It's unrealistic. No matter if you're trad or indie, writing is a business. Nothing in business is easy. Everything takes time and costs money. Some writers get luckier than others.
Indie authors are also entitled to become SoA members.
Indie authors are entitled to become members of SoA, but they're not entitled to apply for grants and other financial assistance which are still very bound up in Trad publishing as validation of being a 'real' author. It's one of the reasons I stopped being a member.
Certain authors really pulled the ladder up with them, but often the real money to be made is from licensing deals.
They don't need authors anymore they have chatgpt.
Which was fed on our stolen books... 🫠