The digital era is cutting into income for book authors, making it more difficult to live off writing alone, a survey by the Authors Guild said.
The survey published on Tuesday said income for full-time US authors in 2015 fell 30 per cent from 2009 to US$17,500, and part-time authors saw a 38 per cent drop in income to US$4,500.
“Authors’ income is down. This is the result of a confluence of factors,” the study found.
“The ubiquity of e-books means that online book piracy is more of a threat than it was in 2009. We’ve seen major consolidation within the traditional publishing industry, which means less diversity among publishers and their increased focus on the bottom line.”
Traditional publishers’ dominance of the marketplace meanwhile is being eroded by the rise of self-publishing, the study noted.