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 trad

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.