New Flash: Most Writers Don’t Make Money
by Gordon Haber
Another blockhead. Photo: howtostartablogonline.net
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” — Dr. Johnson
All right, it’s not exactly shocking news. Galleycat has published the results of Digital Book World’s survey of 10,000 writers, and most don’t make a lot of money. Here’s what I think is interesting:
- About 20% of self-published and traditionally published authors make $0. I wonder how many are publishing their work for free?
- 45% of “hybrid” authors — those who self-publish and publish traditionally — make between 0 and $999 a year.
- Very, very few writers make more than $80K a year, but you have a better shot at making decent money as a hybrid author.
All very intriguing, and I recommend you take a look at the Annual Writing Income by Author Type chart. But the one thing they leave out is that a lot of writers are blockheads, at least according to Dr. Johnson. Most years I have nice little side income from writing, but it’s not like I’ll stop writing if that goes away for a year or two.
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