“The
starving artist” is not just a phrase from a century ago nor is it to be
applied to just painters. Apparently,
those who write aren’t making much money and they are making less than they
used to. According to a preliminary
survey released by the Authors Guild, as reported by Publishers Weekly, writers
earn below the Federal Poverty Line.
Full-time
authors reported a 30% drop in income – to $17,500, and part-time authors saw a
38% decrease – to $4,500. So what’s the
take-away here?
The
median income for a writer in 2009 was $10,500 and now it sunk to $8,000 in
2014. We can conclude this:
·
Too
many writers are fighting each other to make a buck. Competition has led to a lot more books being
published but with fewer sales per book.
·
Royalties
from publishers or self-published windfalls are not paying as much as they did
in the past.
·
Too
much free content competes with writers getting paid from book sales.
The
study doesn’t say anything about the role of eBook sales but that could be a
factor.
Authors
see their e-books being sold for a few bucks and then they’re paid a certain
percentage, leaving them with little per sale.
Another
factor is the publishers’ and authors’ mistaken belief they don’t need to push
for sales with traditional media and a paid publicist. Too many rely on social media to sell
books. All of those FB posts and Tweets
can move some books, but it takes more than those free tools to make it rain
money.
The Great Recession is over. Book sales
are growing, year over year, and people still buy and read books. There are
many ways to generate sales and many outlets to sell books. Authors will need
to work harder at getting publicity and sales – and there will need to be a reduction
in the number of authors and books released in order for more of them to make
more money. Just as the world is
overpopulated and can’t be fed with current resources, the writing world can’t
be prosperous for everyone.
So
who will stop publishing books? Who will
sacrifice their craft for that of others?
No one. We will continue to see
more people try to score it big with a book until eventually enough who try
realize they can’t get the financial reward that they seek. Some will stop
trying, but many writers write for reasons other than financial ones. Still, some need to get paid – and they
deserve to be compensated fairly.
What
the survey doesn’t show is how a book figures into a writer’s overall
earnings. For instance, a business book
writer may make $9,000 in book sales but maybe the bigger story is the book led the
writer to find three new consulting clients that yielded a payday of
$50,000. The survey didn’t show how, despite mediocre sales, an author’s book got the attention of the media, and as
a result of the subsequent media coverage saw their web traffic shoot up 300%,
leading to sales of videotapes, audiotapes, or other products.
Still,
regardless of whether writers write for riches or not, and whether they obtain
other benefits beyond book sales, writers should be able to earn more than
spare change. Raise book prices and stop
giving away free books. The public needs to be trained to value the written
word, otherwise words will lose their ability to influence and impact others.
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