Authors' Earnings In The UK

I think the most worrying aspect of that is the move away from full time authors to part time ones (a fall from 40% to 11.5% in nine years is pretty horrific). Many people have been saying for some time that the growth of self-publishing (along with Amazon's determination to end publishing as a separate activity) will result in an end to professional authors and we will only have amateur authors.

Is that a bad thing? Personally I think it is. Now I'm not saying amateur authors are inevitably bad, there are obviously many excellent amateur authors out there, but a part time author will never be able to devote the time to polishing and producing quality that a full time author can do. And besides what's the incentive when the returns are so low.
 
Here's a direct link to ALCS with more information: Authors and at the bottom of that page is a link to a 12 page document with more statistics. There's very little information about the methodology though.
 
I agree, Brian. The last I heard, non-fiction sells a ton more than fiction. And then with fiction, the genre makes a big difference. Romance sells more than SFF.

And averages can be deceptive because they include in the big money makers. A writer like JK Rowling makes enough for It would probably be more accurate to say that the average income for writers is £11,000 a year, instead of the average writer makes that much. I think that the average SFF writer would make £11,000 a year if they turn out at least one book every year like clockwork.
 
To be fair Teresa it does say that 11k is the average for full time authors. And I guess most full time authors probably need to turn them out at that sort of rate. But I agree that the like of Rowling are going to skew that result. In fact it is worrying to think that there must be an awful lot of full time authors earning less than that, which begs the question: how do they survive? Bear in mind that if you were paid the current UK minimum wage of £6.31/hour for 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year (so just 2 weeks holiday) then you would get £12,620. So that average is below the UK minimum wage!
 
You can write full time and not produce a book a year if you're the kind of writer who goes through revision after revision. But perhaps the average full time writer is not neurotic and does produce that book or books a year.

As to how they survive on that, for some there is also the part time second job.
 
I am blown away by how low that is for the Full Time writers. I can't imagine many surviving on that salary. Like Vertigo says that is under min wage. That would explain why less and less are doing it full time I would think. Interesting read but slightly depressing at the same time.
 
I'll buck the trend. 11k a year for a job I can do from home, with no overheads, no childcare, and I'd enjoy. Better than a limited hours contract that traps you below the minimum wage. Compared to that, i'd take it. But then, I made the lifestyle choice years ago and am very used to being broke. :D
 
springs said:
I'll buck the trend. 11k a year for a job I can do from home, with no overheads, no childcare, and I'd enjoy. Better than a limited hours contract that traps you below the minimum wage. Compared to that, i'd take it. But then, I made the lifestyle choice years ago and am very used to being broke. :D
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You are not broke! You have beautiful kids, pets and hubby (in that order :) - sorry). That is worth more than any amount of money. Trust me!
 
I wonder if that has gone down because there are more people self publishing so a wider range of people included in the figures? IE really things have not changed all that much beyond people who make very little with their self published efforts are also being included.
 
Well it was a sample of almost 2500 but anya, that is a valid point. That being said, it is for 'full time' writers
 
ratsy said:
Well it was a sample of almost 2500 but anya, that is a valid point. That being said, it is for 'full time' writers
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But does that class people who earn very little as full time writers? I know one or two retired people who write full time, self publish and make peanuts.

Technically, I could class myself as a writer. I'm a stay at home mother but I do earn a few bob from writing children's stories for a foreign magazine. It is my only income and in the country concerned would be a handsome wage - here it pays my bus fare to writer's group.
 
It helps to have a spouse with a steady job.

Back when I was devoting all my days to writing and caring for my children, it was worth a great deal to have a job I could do at home. But we would have starved without my husband's income, and besides mine was too inconsistent to live on.

I didn't make the decision to be broke -- in fact, I always believed that a time would come when we wouldn't be -- but I became accustomed to it, and I wasn't going to give up my writing and staying at home with the children in order to have all the things that my much more prosperous friends had.
 
Hey Anya, I wonder of that would constitute as a writing income according to this poll? This kind of poll result doesnt really break it down as much as we would like to see.
 
Not sure but it is also worth noting that people in general are earning less and working fewer hours than they need. The economy has a lot of people who are working beneath where they need to be or would have been a few years ago.
 
AnyaKimlin said:
But does that class people who earn very little as full time writers? I know one or two retired people who write full time, self publish and make peanuts.

Technically, I could class myself as a writer. I'm a stay at home mother but I do earn a few bob from writing children's stories for a foreign magazine. It is my only income and in the country concerned would be a handsome wage - here it pays my bus fare to writer's group.
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I agree that's the big ambiguity in this poll. What do they class as full time? I suspect having even a part time 'other' job would exclude. But what about people whose spouses are earning and they themselves are doing no other paid work (but have lots of other work to do). Does that make them a full time author? If the answer is yes then that is going to skew the results down. But then maybe that will just balance out the extreme high earners like Rowling et al.
 
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