Musicians have always relied on other revenue sources. Performance is the big one, but merchandise and licensing matter too. Authors don’t have the same options

Musicians have always relied on other revenue sources. Performance is the big one, but merchandise and licensing matter too. Authors don’t have the same options. Dickens engineered a profitable reading tour of the United States, as new-model enthusiasts always point out. But how many authors could do that today? The author never really addresses his own question, leaving us to assume that authors couldn't generally support themselves through reading tours. I just finished "reading" (by way of audio book, while sitting in traffic) a biography of Mark Twain. He's relevant here in two ways. First, he ushered in a new publishing model, wherein his books were sold by subscription, with sections serialized and delivered periodically. That's pretty alien now (except in some sci-fi magazines), but it shows that the economic realities of the times can dictate major changes in the book publishing business model. Second, due to bad investments, he nearly went bankrupt. He was able to dig his way out of insolvency through a giant world-wide lecture tour. Apparently there were a great many people, across the entire planet (including many out-of-the-way places you'd never think of) who were willing to pay good money to see him lecture (this wasn't readings, but lectures). So it's clear that at least some authors can make a very tidy profit from lecture/reading tours. Trivia note: OP mentions Dickens on a reading tour. It happens that Sam Clemens' first date with his future wife was to see Dickens reading. EDIT: fixed wrong word, "novel" where I meant "model".