Publishing, I’m ashamed to admit, is a notoriously elitist arena. Nepotism is rife in the employment process and writing itself is the domain of the well educated and comfortably off. This has always been the case in the world of literature. Being in a position to write necessitates, as Virginia Woolf succinctly put it ‘money’ and ‘a room of one’s own’.
Not many writers could afford a room of their own on the measly earnings disclosed by the Author’s Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) last month. At a crisis meeting held at the British Library the society discussed the shocking figures revealed by their ‘What Are Words Worth’ survey. On the face of it, the average salary for an author of £16,000, a third less than the national average wage, seems low, but sustainable. The figure conjures romantic images of threadbare jumpers, pokey book-lined rooms and a creative sustenance of roll-ups and cheap wine.
Digging a little deeper into the figures, however, reveals that the top 10 per cent of authors earn more than half the income. This means that of the £907m British authors earn each year, the 5,500 bestselling authors get at least £453m. That average salary figure now sinks from £16,000 to a pitiful £4,000, not sustainable and certainly not romantic.
In books, as in so many other aspects of today’s society, fame is the new aristocracy. Where, once upon a time, a man or woman of letters needed the luxury of time, a drawing room, perhaps a patron to enable them to enter the literary world, now literature is dominated by those with access to the media. Unless you are a celebrity, the mother/wife/son or daughter of a celebrity, have your own TV cookery programme or lifestyle show, or have been a contestant on Big Brother, you are unlikely to be successfully published. It is not that you could not write an interesting, erudite, poignant book, but that you do not have the media profile through which to sell it. Even the lucky few novelists, biographers and historians who do succeed purely on the power of their writing often do so because they have hitched themselves to the great sales vehicle of Richard and Judy, or in America, Oprah. One final ray of hope is that 3 for 2 promotions pile at the front of store in Waterstone’s or Borders. If, as a first time author, you miss that, you have the choice either to lay down your pen or reconcile yourself to a life of penury.
So those who get rich by writing today are almost all rich already. And such has arguably been the case for all artists, not just writers, throughout history. It has always been a struggle for artists to break through financial barriers, and those who succeed are the ones who take advantage of every avenue. Why then do writers and the book world in general fail to capitalise on the potential of the Internet? Taking a look at the way the art world approaches this resource in contrast to the way it is treated by the literary world highlights a gulf between these two, otherwise similar, artistic endeavours.
Much has been made in the art world of the success of artists who use the web to sell directly to consumers. This newly adopted sales forum has shifted the balance of power from the dealers and galleries, who, like agents and publishers, pocket a large percentage of the profits, back to the artists. They don’t sell their works at huge prices but they do sell them and the result is that artists are finding it easier to make a living and the art world is diversifying.
But it’s easier to sell a painting on the web than it is a poem, and whereas the Internet is a democratising force for artists and musicians, for writers, it seems to be making the situation worse. Only 14.7% of UK professional authors have received specific payments for Internet uses of their works. This doesn’t mean that literature is unavailable on the web. The poet Wendy Cope is just one of hundreds of authors who lament the ease with which you can download her skilfully crafted, copyright protected works, for free.
At the heart of the issue lies a clash between the old world of publishing and the relatively new world of the Internet. ‘With every new technological development, our copyright becomes more precious,’ says Maureen Duffy, writer and honorary president of the ALCS, ‘and yet seemingly less understood by those who want to use our work.’
Yet the Internet, and the opportunities it presents, seems to be equally misunderstood by the world of publishing. The well documented wrangle over Google’s Book Search initiative is the classic example. Nigel Newton, chief executive of Bloomsbury, the publisher of the Harry Potter series, tore into Google, labelling the search engine’s plans as ‘literary predation’. Still, Bloomsbury fails to take advantage of the disseminating power of the web to profit from the huge backlist of works to which they do own the copyright.
Penguin’s chief executive, John Makinson, on the other hand, believes digital publishing opens up new sales directions. He says: ‘The availability of traditional printed material in new formats and the emergence of new digital distribution channels is overwhelmingly positive for authors, for consumers and for us. Whenever the consumer is offered more choice … more content is sold.’
It is certainly the case that the Internet could provide a profitable, legal and creatively liberating source of income for writers. As ALCS’s research figures demonstrate, whilst the archaic publishing industry agonizes about how to approach this new field, it is the writers who are losing out.
