The Bookseller.com

4th July 2009

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Publishers attacked as authors lose out

08.03.07 Joel Rickett and Alison Bone

Author Maureen Duffy has criticised publishers for hacking away at author earnings, as new research shows the average income for a professional writer is now a third lower than the national average wage. Duffy, honorary president of the Authors' Licensing & Collecting Society, said falling advances and royalty rates are forcing authors to fall back on secondary copyright payments. But with every new technological development, copyright becomes more resented by the public as a barrier to free exploitation.

She issued a call to arms to protect the principle of payment for content in the digital age. "In a time when commissions, advances and even royalties have been hacked away by corporate management . . . Copyright is still the only way to secure the financial return necessary to keep us writing. It is a battle we cannot afford to lose."

Duffy was opening an ALCS debate about copyright on Thursday, where a survey of 25,000 authors was unveiled to show the average author earns £16,531 a year, compared to a UK national average wage of around £23,000. But the typical (median) earning for authors is just £4,000--well below subsistence levels.

The ALCS survey found that 60% of people who see themselves as professional authors require a second source of income to survive. The top 10% of authors earn more than 50% of total income, while the bottom 50% earn less than 10% of total income."The gap between successful writers and the rest is becoming inexorably wider," warned Society of Authors general secretary Mark Le Fanu. Fewer than 15% of authors, meanwhile, have received payments for online uses of their work.

"What is at stake is not only our literary heritage [and] tens of thousands of jobs in publishing and bookselling . . . but also the UK potential to innovate and educate," said Duffy. "Without copyright we have nothing to trade and the threat is that, under pressure from the education industry and the public, the equipment - manufacturers and the media corporations, we are to have our rights confiscated."

PA c.e.o. Ronnie Williams agreed that copyright is "incredibly important" for authors. He said: "Publishers have a duty to help protect copyright of their authors—the author is the creator and where it all begins."

Joel Rickett and Alison Bone Authors' Licensing & Collecting Society Maureen Duffy