A new study by the Digital Book World Conference has rocked the writing community. My Twitter feed is blowing up with chatter about how little money writers actually make. According to the study, most writers make less than $1000 a year from their writing.
Naturally, this is causing quite a panic. Who wants to keep trying to be an author when authors are reporting their earnings at well below poverty level? I must admit to initially freaking out too.
But then I calmed down and took time to read the study in depth. Upon perusing the study, I calmed down quite a bit. The demographic of the authors surveyed is telling.
First, a whopping 65% of surveyed authors self identified as "aspiring authors." Another 18% identified as self-published authors. These are not "professional" authors, at least not in the sense that they have snagged traditional publishing contracts and you are likely to find their books on the shelves when you walk into your local Barnes and Noble.
In fact, only 8% of respondents identified as traditionally published authors. Though a staggering 53.9% of the traditionally published authors who responded reported they raked in $1000 or less per year from their writing. However, considering only about 736 of the 9,210 surveyed identified as traditionally published, and only around 368 of those made less than $1000 per year, I don't think there's much to be worried about.
The study also did not allow people to identify as indie published or e-book only published, and I believe these categories would have provided some major clarification on the subject.
Moderately successful authors (those who don't make the NY Times Bestseller List) who manage to continuously publish books in the traditional market probably make considerably more than a thousand measly dollars per year. Bestselling authors surely make significantly more. Amanda Hocking proved you can get rich self-publishing your own books.
As long as there are huge success stories out there for authors, I'll keep trying to land that publishing contract. I have high hopes, and one little study isn't going to diminish my dream one bit. Don't let it cloud your ambitions either.
I think the other thing to consider is how long people have been writing and whether or not they treat it as their full-time job. Obviously, on $1000 a year, it's not your full-time job. But authors who write full-time? They WRITE full-time. They don't dick around on twitter and blogs (like I do). They churn out as many books as possible - romance authors put out as many as six books a year and epic fantasy writers put out one every twelve to fifteen months. They don't take four, five, TEN years to write a novel.
ReplyDeleteAnd then they do it again. And again. And again. They don't stop writing, they don't rest, and their backlist sells. Then they convert to paperback. And audio. And they sell in a foreign market. And on and on. It's the longevity that builds the career, and very few people have the patience, the work-ethic and the stamina to work thanklessly on something long enough to make a genuine career out of it.
Just my opinion.