Authors' earnings

Who would be a writer? Well, no one who wants to earn a living, if the latest numbers published by the UK Authors' Licensing & Collecting Society (ALCS) are to be believed. Median earnings from writing alone are now just £7,000, compared with £10,497 in 2018, with the decline made worse when adjusted for inflation.

The crashing of the pound in recent weeks has hit costs for Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. attendees this week, but publishers and agents insist there is a silver lining for rights and export sales to the US.

A group of best-selling authors is teaming up with Amazon in a lawsuit that aims to bring down an alleged counterfeit e-book publishing site described as "the biggest pirate book site the world has ever seen."  Read more

A total of 94% of authors in the U.K. are white, with 2% Asian, 2% mixed race, and 1% black. (4% identify as "other.") The most recent census, in 2011, put the white population of the U.K. at 86%.  Read more

I was paid a £12,500 advance to write my book, Open Up. Sharing this publicly, even as the author of a book about our emotional relationship with money, was initially petrifying, but I ended up revealing it in the book - it's there on page 17.  Read more