Top 5% of writers earned 42% of all income.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Wealth disparity has been proven to be a resolute truth at many different sociological and economic levels — it affects the general masses on an international scale, it’s rampant among institutions of higher education.
It’s also wrapped its slippery tentacles around the vocation of writing.
A report commissioned by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society of Britain found the top 5 percent of authors earned 42 percent of all income received by professional writers in 2013.
Meanwhile, the BBC revealed the bottom half of the professional writer pool accounted for just 7 percent of all authors’ earnings overall, while the Independent reported the median income for professional incomes is below minimum wage.
The society said writers earned 29 percent less in 2013 than 2005.
“The creative industries are thriving, generating £76 billion per annum, yet professional writers have seen a near 30 percent reduction in earnings in recent years,” the society’s head of rights, Richard Combes, told the British Broadcasting Company. “Consequently many are no longer able to sustain a career. The one truly irreplaceable link in the value chain is being stretched to breaking point.”
The report, compiled by Queen Mary, University of London, decided: “There is a high concentration of earnings in a handful of successful writers whereas most do not earn much at all.”
The study revealed 42.3 percent of all income generated by professional writers in Britain was earned by authors earning more than £100,000 a year.
The U.K.’s top selling authors include J.K. Rowling, who earned $14 million in 2014 according to Forbes, while E.L. James is reputed by the Independent to have earned $10 million last year from the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy.
Nicola Solomon, chief executive of the Society of Authors, said that part of the problem was many publishers have concentrated on the “safe” with celebrity authors, many of whom were not even writers but actors, television personalities and sportspeople.
“While it’s always been a profession where the biggest authors earn disproportionately more, what’s concerning to see is that the inequality is getting wider,” she lamented. “It’s undeniably harder to sustain a career in writing now.”