3 ms·

I get that this is the authors guild and activism and lobbying is literally their job, but statements like "survey finds that median book and writing-related in

by paxys 3y ago

I get that this is the authors guild and activism and lobbying is literally their job, but statements like "survey finds that median book and writing-related income for authors in 2022 was below the poverty level" are meaningless. What makes one an "author" exactly? Publishing a book? I can do that in 5 minutes online with 3 clicks. Does that mean I qualify for the survey? Well, I made $0 from my writing last year, so I guess that means I'm being exploited and the government isn't properly valuing the essential contribution I make to society. I'll expect my weekly check in the mail. It's like saying the average software developer makes below-poverty wages from their work...if you consider everyone in the world with an idea for an app in their head to be a software developer.

spencerflem 3y ago
No, it would be like counting everyone who made an app as a software developer
- paxys 3y ago
  Go through any of the app stores and look up all the trash that is published on a daily basis that gets single digit downloads. Look at all the new websites registered. Millions of people follow "create a React to-do list" tutorials and write their own. These are all software developers who make zero income from their craft. Yet no one is arguing that software developers as a whole are underprivileged. You can apply this same logic to actors, musicians, real estate agents and a hundred other professions. There's just the understanding that if there are zero barriers to entry you have to have some test that sets the professionals/serious practitioners apart. Otherwise your surveys are always going to tend towards 0.
stubish 3y ago
Self publishing certainly muddied the waters for statistics on author income, which is why the survey and article break things down info self published and traditionally published. Fundamentally though, it isn't if you qualify for the survey, but if you both know about it and identify as an author, passionately enough to bother filling it out. How do you think an author should be defined? And what list do you use to validate them? If you start raising the bar, you start limiting the scope. Maybe that is the problem; comparing apples with oranges or romance authors with self help gurus. But if you set your bar to something like 'authors making >$20,000 in royalties per year', you will unsurprisingly get a result where authors make >$20,000 in royalties per year.

by paxys 3y ago

spencerflem 3y ago

No, it would be like counting everyone who made an app as a software developer

paxys 3y ago
Go through any of the app stores and look up all the trash that is published on a daily basis that gets single digit downloads. Look at all the new websites registered. Millions of people follow "create a React to-do list" tutorials and write their own. These are all software developers who make zero income from their craft. Yet no one is arguing that software developers as a whole are underprivileged. You can apply this same logic to actors, musicians, real estate agents and a hundred other professions. There's just the understanding that if there are zero barriers to entry you have to have some test that sets the professionals/serious practitioners apart. Otherwise your surveys are always going to tend towards 0.

stubish 3y ago

Self publishing certainly muddied the waters for statistics on author income, which is why the survey and article break things down info self published and traditionally published. Fundamentally though, it isn't if you qualify for the survey, but if you both know about it and identify as an author, passionately enough to bother filling it out. How do you think an author should be defined? And what list do you use to validate them? If you start raising the bar, you start limiting the scope. Maybe that is the problem; comparing apples with oranges or romance authors with self help gurus. But if you set your bar to something like 'authors making >$20,000 in royalties per year', you will unsurprisingly get a result where authors make >$20,000 in royalties per year.