Author incomes tumble

The Authors Guild suggested that Amazon’s dominance is partly responsible for loss of earnings for US authors. 

Amazon says the findings are flawed.

The report was published in  early 2019, but I never saw it at the time, which is why it is interesting now when I have been looking at my own stats.  On the whole I made more sales prior to 2014 than I do now. One thing the report does not consider is the vast number of books that are now self-published. One report I read stated over 7,000 a day! 

The Authors Guild said the median writing income in 2017 fell 42% from 2009 and pointed out the growing dominance of Amazon as a reason for this. The company now controls 72% of the online book market in the US and keeps costs down and takes a large percentage, plus marketing fees, forcing publishers to pass on their losses to authors.

Amazon disagrees and points out significant differences between the data it compared in its recent survey and years prior, with many of the survey’s conclusions flawed or contradictory. It claims earnings increased almost 17% for traditionally published authors and 89% for self-published authors, and that full-time authors saw their median income rise 13% since 2013.

Read the full report by Alison Flood