Self Published Authors Don't Make a Lot of $

A comprehensive survey of DIY writers suggests that despite a few high-profile successes most authors struggle to sell.

From a piece in the Guardian...

"The majority of the information out there is about the outliers, whose success is inspiring, but as we can now confirm bears scant resemblance to the experience of most authors," said Dave Cornford and Steven Lewis, who carried out the survey, published on Thursday, for the Taleist website.

Those who want to do best at self-publishing, they found, would be well advised to focus on romantic fiction. Romance authors earned 170% more than their peers, while authors in other genres fared much worse: science-fiction writers earned 38% of the $10,000 average, fantasy writers 32%, and literary fiction authors just 20% of the $10,000 average.

It's also best to be female, educated and in your early 40s: the survey's "top earners" – those who indicated they could live exclusively off their earnings – were 68% female, and 33% had a degree, compared to an average of 28%. High earners also dedicated more of their time to their writing, churning out 2,047 words a day on average, as compared to 1,557 for the rest of the sample.