This article was originally written several years ago on the old blog, and has been moved here complete with most of the comments. The material is still timely!
Following up on our jolly article about Mark Twain’s get rich quick schemes, the sad truth is there is no surer way to get poor quickly and permanently than by becoming a writer.
While a very small percentage of writers rake in the cash, the low income echelons increase as the internet and book pirating cut into writer’s profits. According to this survey, the average writer in Britain makes no more than 4,000 pounds per year (about $6,000)! Of course, many of them continue to believe they will break that exclusive club of top ten percent of income earning phenoms, despite all evidence to the contrary.
“Jane”…is now on her fourth book, in her forties, with a devoted band of readers. They see her on stage at literary festivals, elegant and eloquent and just a little bohemian, and think: “There is a writer who’s made it.” They don’t know that the advances have dwindled down to £10,000 a time (from which the agent and taxman take their share; and for a book that usually takes about two years to write). They don’t see the bills threatening to make her sell her house.
Jane doesn’t want me to use her real name in case it upsets her publisher or fans. Neither does she want them to know that she works in the local Waitrose for cash, as well as teaching and tutoring.
“People come and see me all bright-eyed, dreaming of being a writer,” she said.
“They’ve got the idea that anyone can do it. That’s what people think: that it’s so easy. I wish! I tell them I’ve been training since I was seven.” Others do have talent. “They tell me it’s their calling. I say it will have to be. I don’t want to crush them, but the best advice if you want to eat is: ‘Do something else.’”
Copyright pirating, especially online, is a major problem for writers (and artists) whose work can be downloaded for free at any time. Writers are desperate to come up with ways to make the internet pay, but many consumers who use the internet are accustomed to getting their entertainment for free. They see no reason to buy a book or piece of art when they can have it from websites around the world.
A…crisis meeting (was) called by the ALCS at the British Library on Thursday, but some of the most distinguished names in British literature were there to discuss the plummeting income of authors and the copyright issues that threaten to make it worse. Some raged against Google’s plans to make whole books available online for free. The poet Wendy Cope lamented the ease with which you can download her own works and those of other poets for free.
“With every new technological development, our copyright becomes more precious,” said Maureen Duffy, writer and honorary president of the ALCS, “and yet seemingly less understood by those who want to use our work.”
As for artists, a professional’s income averages about $15,000 per annum, and some must now compete with websites offering high quality, downloadable images for sale, or cheap, hand painted knockoffs with no royalties paid to the artists, to say nothing of the large numbers of scanned comics now available. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
