‘The Changing Economy of Publishing Today’
On Wednesday (February 19), the Authors Guild released news of a new report it commissioned from the University of Colorado’s Christine Larson. Called “The Profession of Author in the 21st Century,” the report is important reading for anyone who is working in the trade as an author or would like to.
As you may recall from our earlier mentions of the Authors Guild, it’s the oldest and largest author-advocacy organization in the United States. At more than 10,000 members, it may eventually evolve into a labor union, leveraging collective bargaining on behalf of book writers and others in its membership.
Building on the Guild’s 2018 survey of author incomes, the new study is an effort to understand what’s pressuring the moneymaking potential and realities of authors. The top-line quote from Larson’s report: “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.”
You can certainly take comfort in this report’s evidence that you’re hardly alone in your own fiscal challenges as a writer. And nobody who values storytelling, let alone writing, can take any pleasure in the fact that authors are in such a disadvantageous position. But like the Society of Authors in the UK, the Guild’s news here is something every author needs to know, needs to consider, and needs to contemplate–as the Guild’s leadership is doing–in terms of what can be done.
Author Douglas Preston, who serves as the Guild’s current president, is quoted in this week’s roll-out of the study, saying, “Anger, frustration and sorrow are three of the most common emotions expressed by authors cited in the report.” He goes on to clarify that the Guild’s purpose is “helping to prevent the total sidelining of professional writers in the new literary and information landscape and protecting their ability to earn a living in this brave new world.”
You can read the full report here.
And I’ll give you the top-line points the Guild is highlighting, pulled from their media messaging, which got to our offices on Wednesday. Bolds and italic emphases are theirs. In any points I’ve clarified something, that clarification is in brackets like these: [ ].
- It’s harder to make a living as an author now than in the past. Indeed, writing incomes have dropped by 24 percent 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 percent of Americans say they read books for pleasure down from 57 percent 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 [from their writings] than the federal poverty level of $12,488. Literary authors are the hardest hit, experiencing a 46-percent drop in their book-related income in just five years. Other relevant data:
- 80 percent 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 percent 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 percent over the past four years, led largely by the success of e-romance novels, self-published authors still earn 80 percent 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 percent from the year before.
Looking for Responses
My provocation for you today has to do with what economists and others sometimes call a “structural” point about a change in the context in which authors exist and work. This is my quick explication of what the Guild is describing in deep detail in order to help the writing world understand what’s happening:
The advent of the Internet–and the multiple media channels that are driven by it–has inspired vast new numbers of people to think of themselves as authors. Writing itself is more accessible to more people. So far so good. But the arrival of the Internet and those media has also caused much of the audience to turn away from reading, something reflected in the Authors Guild report. More writers, fewer readers.
On its face, this is an amazing Catch-22. The very thing that floats so many people’s writerly boats is the same thing that has sent their potential readers to film, television, gaming, video, music, and more, all on the devices in their pockets.
When I was speaking earlier this month in Dubai, a fellow speaker kept saying that people today are so starved for “story.” No they’re not. They’re inundated with story. Every television commercial, every tweet, and every football game is a story. We’re drowning in stories. And this makes authors’ jobs infinitely harder because authors no longer are the prime bringers of story: the village griot may not be needed, in the opinions of many.
The Authors Guild’s news is important because a clear-eyed assessment based on actual market forces has a lot better chance of producing a successful response than turning a blind eye to the iceberg off the starboard bow.
So today, I ask you: What’s the response?
When we spoke with author Andrew Keen recently, he told us that he’s convinced today that he must be on many platforms–”If you just sit in a room and write a book, it’s not enough,” he told us. Is that it? Do authors need to become masters of the many channels, as Keen has done? Or is there another way forward?
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About Porter Anderson
@Porter_Anderson is a recipient of London Book Fair's International Excellence Award for Trade Press Journalist of the Year. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, the international news medium of Frankfurt Book Fair New York. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and indie authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. Priors: The Bookseller's The FutureBook in London, CNN, CNN.com and CNN International–as well as the Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, and the United Nations' WFP in Rome. PorterAndersonMedia.com
It’s important to be aware of all this, depressing as it is. What concerns me, among other things, is the implication that only people of means can be full-time writers (since you can’t support yourself by writing alone). You need to have another source of income (a second job) AND you also have to do the job that publishers used to do—oversee publicity and promotion for your book. That means you have to do three things: write, market, and do “something else” to make sure you have enough money to live. Each of these takes time, focus, and energy. And what about that other thing #having a life? Relationships and engagement with the world are what fuels our writing. Hard to see how to fit that in! A daunting picture, and all the more so for authors of color. Now that the situation has been laid out: Is there anything we can DO to change this??
Hi, Barbara,
Thanks so much for this note and particularly for your willingness to say how important it is to face this despite the depressing nature of it all.
There’s no question that this is a daunting situation. One of the things that comes to light in Christina Larson’s piece is a recognition that we’re somewhat repeating an earlier age — for a couple of centuries of modern authorship, only the upper crust could manage to write because they had the luxury of time (meaning wealth).
And the modern era’s double-whammy (triple, as you see it, yes) of having to have a day job and write, of course, predates the Internet era — the late Tom Clancy told me in an interview (very movingly, actually) about his original struggle to write while working as an insurance salesman (if I remember correctly) with a wife who worked, as well. Only once he’d achieved his success (which was huge) did he enter that privileged and rare space of people who can simply write because their work pays for everything.
In your model of the triple-whammy with marketing thrown in, there are some authors who find that they can make this part of the creative element of the work. These are folks who simply are gifted with that PR sense that some have and others don’t, a kind of joy in figuring out how to create visibility and sales for their work. But for many, this is a huge difficulty and the lines tend to fall along the divide between those who are comfortable in the business aspects of the job and those who are at ease only in the artistic side.
Andrew Keen, who I mentioned in the piece, has found that he’s a duck in water, really, in his reach across many platforms — even having become a documentary filmmaker in the process to help raise his messaging to another channel. That, too, however, takes a lot of time.
What we’re really describing is an author as an impresaria or impresario of her or his own work. I find that I’m often in awe of some of the authors I meet at the international trade shows and conferences and festivals I cover because somehow they make enormous amounts of time for these appearances. At a certain time of year, I often find some of the same authors in so many of the world events I’m at. and they’ll tell me how they’ve learned to write on the planes, in the hotel rooms, getting to breakfast before everyone else so they can write while eating — keeping it all going on the road. No mean feat.
The Authors Guild is working to try to address this. I’ll have a piece coming to Publishing Perspectives soon on it. Obviously, there are no easy answers. And one of the ironic factors is that the Internet’s enabling power for so many writers has had the result of flooding the zone, as we say, with people who think they can and should be writing. Some of them should, mind you, but to think that all the folks who want to write are people whose work is really germane and viable in such a crowded market is magical thinking. Early in the self-publishing movement, there was a concept that “most of them will drop out when they realize they can’t self-sell.” That winnowing out is hard to detect and the level of production, certainly based on ISBNs remains high.
So many answers are needed, none looks easy.
One thing I’d warn against is falling for folks who say that writing has never been meant to create a livable income. They maintain that it’s wrong-headed to think that one should be able to live on one’s creative work. That’s a bit of a false argument. There’s no real roster of Careers That Are Meant To Give You a Living Wage. And I don’t think it’s that wrong of authors to want to be able to live on their creative work. However, the important parallel that you’ve pointed out so well, is that the reality at the moment is that living on one’s writing is incredibly hard, anything but guaranteed, and happening for comparatively few.
Thanks again for getting us off to such a good start in comments here.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
That’s a bummer of a report, but I think it has only confirmed what most writers and aspiring writers already know.
I do believe you are right about how we are inundated with story, and (from a previous post) that perhaps writers might explore moving into some of those other story arenas such as scriptwriting. Many authors I know have always diversified off of their writing – such as editing, coaching and teaching. It seems like it comes down to diversifying or keeping the day job. :)
My boyfriend is a jazz drummer. Marvel at the concept–a full-time writer AND a jazz musician trying to survive in our respective fields. We also live in the hinterlands of Italy because it’s cheaper.
There’s very little work here for jazz musicians, Italian or American. So what do they do? They teach. Schools and conservatories in Italy are FLOODED with teachers who may have the credentials to teach but lack the experience to be truly effective. Consequently, there is an alarming rate of musical illiteracy among graduate musicians here and in the United States.
And there’s fierce competition for those jobs. That’s the irony. Bottom of the barrel teaching gigs are now the holy grail of musicians. What do you do when you’ve studied your whole life to master an instrument, but there’s nowhere to play and the Internet has gutted the industry?
Anyway, I thought you might find that information interesting or useful. Maybe my boyfriend and I can move back to the States and land at job at UPS (joking–they wouldn’t hire us).
My youngest son appears to be rather talented in regards to music and he wants to make music his career. I’ve encouraged him, all while ensuring he understands the nature of competition involved in artistic careers (be it theatre, music or writing.) And then, because he also is a pretty smart guy, I encourage him to double major in college — music with a doable day-job. :P
I realized several years ago I probably wouldn’t ever get to stop working based off of writing income. I’m too old and even if the needed stars aligned for me right now it would take a while to get to the point of quitting. So, I just go along and do what I can with the time available. I guess I’m not the typical driven writer, but I do enjoy writing–and I continue to work to be ready for when those stars align! :D
Thank you for this, Porter.
Being an author is not the only profession caught in a downslaught of income. I am an ordained minister since ’96. Churches are also in transition–less people participating, less money for full-time pastors, more pastors becoming bi-vocational. Other voluntary and civic agencies are also experiencing less members, less income–VFWs, Legions, and their Auxiliaries, Masonic Lodges and Eastern Star to name a few.
Yes, we are over saturated with stories, poorly written and well written. But we still need inspiring stories, stories that challenge us in some aspect–emotional, intellectual, spiritual–stories that somehow resonate with us, give us direction or hope or toss us into despair, whether that story be written or in images on a screen.
Societies as a whole are in the midst of drastic changes as old ways of understanding (economy, politics, and ideologies) crumble and restructures or new ways are yet coming into being. Lots of frustration and polarization. But stories that resonate can shape our future.
Hm, did I get on a soapbox? At any rate, thank you for a pointing out this provocative study from the Author’s Guild.
My husband is a pastor and writer (novels, screenwriting) and I am a copywriter for a family-owned independent publishing house and a writer (novels, short stories, poetry). We will likely never lose the “day jobs” and write full time. We will never be rich. But we have built a life we love and feel blessed despite the pressures, largely because we are telling the stories we want to tell.
Inundated with story? True enough. Yet consider this, Porter: the annual number of fiction titles from print publishers, roughly 6000, is the same as it was when I opened my literary agency forty years ago.
So, what has changed? Fewer readers? That’s not really true. Industry growth is not exactly a knockout but has been steady, with bright spots like YA to cheer us. (54%? Yeah, that’s sad, but was 57% really that much better? Readers are readers, even now.)
Maybe, then, consolidation? If we’re down to Big Five (we’re not, but still), then aren’t the gatekeepers turning too many away, most especially those who are not straight white male authors? Again, not true. “Diversity” (hate that term, BTW) has distance yet to go, but has nevertheless come far. There is hardly a voice or cultural background that is not represented, if not celebrated, by our industry.
Well, hey, let’s blame Amazon! Uh, maybe not? The giant online retailer has made delivery of books to readers easier, not harder. While we may moan about B&N (oh, how times change) and take only thin satisfaction in the toehold of new independents, that fact is that getting hold of fiction is not difficult.
Authors must promote themselves? Porter, when was that never true? Ad and promo dollars have always gone disproportionately to brand authors. Publishers are not idiots. They know well that throwing money at unknown authors is largely ineffective. (Even so, they sometimes do.) And for authors themselves, online promotion–never before possible–is cheap and accessible to all. DIY has never been easier.
Price point? Take a look. While the Kindle bookstore has devalued fiction almost to zero, the reverse has happened in the print world. Mass-market paperbacks are no longer cheap. It is a hardcover world. For $25, consumers demand more from fiction, too, and the fiction that meets that need is labor intensive. (I wrote a whole book addressing that trend.)
In addition, higher pricing has led to lower unit sales. The days of 12 million units sold in paperback (think The Thorn Birds) are over. Mass-market print runs today are in five figures, sometimes four. Then again, isn’t discount (predatory?) e-book pricing therefore actually a benefit for authors? I find it so! Price promotions work! Unit sales soar–for backlist titles too!–and new fans are won.
The Authors Guild report is, as ever, depressing. But what is to blame? And what is to be done? If readers remain, and no voice is excluded, and putting a title in front of people has never been easier, and flexible pricing can appeal to any pocketbook…my provocation back to you, Porter, is this: Is anyone or anything really to blame?
Making money as an author was never easy. The bar was always high. Today, if anything, the bar to publication is lower. Indeed, when its close to the ground you can’t limbo under it. It’s true that industry conditions have changed, in publishers, retail delivery, promotion, and pricing. Things have changed in noticeable ways, but in a more fundamental way nothing has changed.
Bottom line: Great stories find readers. Great storytellers grow audiences. I would not say that there are more barriers to earnings today, I would say there are fewer. What may be true is that in a world awash with stories, as you say, one must write stories that stand out.
And what stands out? Ah, that’s where the news is good. What stands out is fiction that is not thin and cookie-cutter, but which is personal, passionate, richly written, and original. And no one and nothing is keeping any author from doing that.
Back to you, my friend.
I feel oddly better. Thank you.
We are all unnerved, I suspect, by the sea changes of the 21st century. Everything is falling apart, and when it gets Frankensteined back together again, the results are often unrecognizable.
But I found your response thoughtful and inspiring. Statistics rarely tell the whole story. And the quality of writing these days (with a few notable but wildly lucrative exceptions) is breathtaking. That’s worth something at least.
Gone are the Truman Capote/enfant terrible days of popping pills, missing deadlines, and being feted by an adoring press. But that’s not such a bad thing, is it?
Hey Don,
Page 36 of this report brings up retail monopsony as a contributing factor towards its conclusions. That’s something we’re dealing (struggling) with in the farming industry. What are your thoughts?
Amazon has seized half of all books sales, but how has that reduced book sales overall, or author earnings? Royalty rates in contracts are unchanged. Unit sales look to me not that different than ten years ago, at least in hardcover. (Mass market is another story, one of slow death.). There is no one scapegoat, just a host of historic factors that are not going to give us a single “fix”, and there are plenty of storytellers who need no fix at all. Not saying our biz is easy, but honestly it never was.
Thanks for your insight Don. You have a brighter outlook than this report (which changed its methodology just recently anyway).
James, can you elaborate on that? I’m intensely curious. In what way has the Authors Guild changed the way it collects information?
Page 12 of the report, under additional benchmarks it states that the surveys from 2008 & 2014 can’t directly compare to the one from 2018 due to differing methodologies. That means they’re refining how they do the surveys to be more accurate, but it puts the trends they lay out in section three into question.
It doesn’t mean the report is innacurrate only that the trends will take more time to show anything concrete because it’s like they are starting over.
It’s a nit picky distinction.
My whole life, I’ve struggled with the idea that facts are not necessarily truth … but that doesn’t mean I eschew the facts :-)
Thank you, James. It’s appreciated.
Great encouragement! Thank you!
Getting two perspectives this morning (what I LOVE about WU) is such a gift, so thank you Porter and Don. The world is always changing. Technology has shifted the global landscape at every level. But as I read the report, Porter, I kept coming back to one thing; a good story is a good story. Writing one is never going to be easy, let a lone ushering into the world. But it’s the job I picked and walking away isn’t an option. I’ve done side-hustles all my life because creating has always been job one. That, at least, is something that never changes. And since Don mentioned it, I’d like to say that I’m also not a fan of the word ‘diversity’. When have we ever not been diverse? When have there ever only been two sexes? But it thrills me that we’re finally having these hard conversations and that writers are making the conversations available to everyone. Great post, Porter. My blood is up!
Yes, reading you, Porter, and having Don respond is like sitting in a NY restaurant with the inner circle. I’m off now for a minor surgery, but will read this in detail later. Thanks for being part of WU. Beth
This post confirms what I assumed was the current environment. I am in awe of those who aspire to support themselves and their families through writing.
I came to novel-writing after retirement so I have the means (at least enough to stay afloat) and the time (around all the other stuff of life) to satisfy my creative appetite. I am as serious about this new love as if it were my full-time job, which I guess it is. Just not a self-supporting one.
But if technology has diluted the average quality of literary output and lowered the average writer’s income, it has also provided enormous benefits for the novice. Like having an entire universe of expert advice available online and in print to guide the new author to competency in the craft. And writers conferences to get to know the pros and settle into the profession.
So I don’t expect to support myself with my writing. I may not even break even after all the marketing efforts. But given all the expertise I’ve found the past few years, I’m a much better writer today than I would have been several decades ago. And in the end, that’s the goal.
If the pile of Books To Read is growing by 1.68 million per year (just in the US!) but the number of readers isn’t growing, then reason suggests that there will be the same or smaller quantity of money having to stretch a whole lot further, i.e. smaller and smaller slivers of the pie. And most likely some people will be getting nothing but crumbs (if so much).
Even a good book stands a good chance of being buried under a pile of 1.68 million new titles per annum.
Hello Porter. Thanks for another real-world commentary.
I especially appreciate your observation about our being awash in “story.” Really, nothing but story figures now–in politics, advertising, religion as well as the written word. People running for office are urged by their handlers to frame everything in terms of a story, their own or someone else’s, preferably a story about military service, or hardship when growing up.
You also note that literary fiction is the hardest hit. With the rise of technology-driven alternatives to reading, simple genre work dominates, while literary fiction is disappearing. That’s because actual works of “literature” call on people to think, to reflect on content not exclusively driven by emotion. If you can’t write something that requires the reader to have a box of Kleenex handy, or a Glock under the pillow, and you can’t or won’t master the intricacies of online marketing, it probably makes more sense to open a cheese shop.
Well, I come from a theatre background. It took years – decades, even – for some people to make a living just in their theatre jobs.
We all worked side jobs to pay the rent while we were acting, directing, stage managing, etc. at night. We typed and waited tables and tended bar. It was – rightly or wrongly – accepted and expected. Working full time in theatre was not a path to financial security.
So we branched out to commercials, industrials, TV, voice overs. We were, as one of my friends describes himself, ‘grinders’. We marketed ourselves constantly because that was part of being in the business. No matter what we were working on, we were always looking for the next gig. We kept at it, though at times it was exhausting.
I approached my writing career the same way: it would take years, maybe longer, to support myself just with writing. But that writing includes freelance work as well as books. It includes public speaking gigs. It includes grants to support my work. Am I there yet? No, but that’s on me.
I’m doing my taxes now, so I’m all too familiar with how much I earned last year. Am I depressed about it? No, because I tweaked my marketing plan to respond to what did not work last year.
I’m an indie author. I have flexibility and control over what I do. But the bottom line is that I’m running a business, which means some years are better than others. And I’m okay with that.
Doesn’t really touch on the rising numbers in the global market for books written in English, nor on the rising demand for audible books. Joanna Penn mentioned these trends in recent podcasts. A quick search finds free glimpses of statistics on several paid portals that show increasing global consumer demand and book publishing revenues.
I haven’t read the report yet, so this is in response to your comments rather than the report.
There was NEVER a time when most authors could support themselves solely with their writing. That was always possible only for a relatively small percentage of authors. This has not changed. (I speak from the relatively privileged position of someone who has, does and it looks like will continue to be able to do so)
Yes, it would be great if all authors could make a living by writing. Of course, authors want that, but why would we expect that to happen now when it never happened in the past.
The accusation that the Kindle is responsible for a drop in author income is purely spurious. You can’t back that up because it is not true. The Kindle makes sales of books easier. Never before was someone able to think, “I want something new to read” and immediately have a book in hand. Making a trip to the nearest b&m store is much less likely and might not happen at all before the desire has gone away. The Kindle is not responsible for a drop in readers or a drop in income.
Since the AG has always been anti-self-publishing, that they can speak about our income is simply false. Few self-published authors are members or want to be considering the hostile environment.
I want to talk about Don’s comment. I wish I could be as optimistic as he is.
‘Great stories find readers. Great storytellers grow audiences. I would not say that there are more barriers to earnings today, I would say there are fewer. What may be true is that in a world awash with stories, as you say, one must write stories that stand out. And what stands out? Ah, that’s where the news is good. What stands out is fiction that is not thin and cookie-cutter, but which is personal, passionate, richly written, and original. And no one and nothing is keeping any author from doing that.’
This is a marvellous manifesto. I love it. I hope it’s true, but I fear Don speaks as someone firmly established in the industry, who works with authors who have the support of the industry. That is the universe he sees. He says great storytellers grow audiences as if it happens by some divine right. Actually, it only happens if they have the resources and skills to reach audiences. And the support. Building an audience without support and knowhow is very hard. And it’s actually not the author skill, it’s a separate skill.
This brings me to another point. There’s a myth that the personal, passionate, richly written, original stories are picked for publication, that if you reach the standard, success will come. Actually, reality is different. In my experience, when publishers say they want ‘original’, they want 5% original. I’m not talking about kooky books, either – narrated by cats, mixing unlikely genres. This-punk. Para-that. I’m talking grown-up, nuanced original stories, where editors/agents say: ‘your book is too difficult to market but we genuinely enjoyed reading it’. This means that if those editors/agents were thinking like readers, they’d be satisfied. If they think like industry professionals, they don’t want to take the risk.
I wish editors and agents would be more honest about the equation between talent/originality/craft and commercial success. Actually, in my experience, they are honest – but only behind the scenes. In the press, they bring out this myth that good work will rise to the top.
What’s the way forward? As a writer, I have only one option – to do the work and aim to write books well. Aim for the ideal Don Maass identifies – I certainly agree with it. I couldn’t put it better. They are the books I want to read. But even if I achieve it (which is not for me to judge) – I don’t hold my breath that I’ll automatically get the readers he says I’ll get. Being original/skilful/passionate is not enough. Indeed, sometimes it’s too much. Sorry, Don; the news is not good. The ideal you describe is not what actually happens in the wider world. But I’ll continue aiming for it anyway.