I believe that there should be income transparency across all fields, including the arts. We need to talk openly and honestly about where the main part of our income is coming from, so that writers, especially those new to this business can know what to expect and what to fight for for themselves.
Traditional publishers continue to concentrate advances around a small number of headline authors, leaving midlist advances thinner and less frequent than they were a decade ago. According to the Australian Society of Authors’ 2023 survey, “32% of authors received no advance, and almost 70% reported an advance of under $5,000. Even with low advances, only 59% of authors reported earning out their advance.”
If you want numbers that show what authors are actually earning, the Authors Guild’s survey is essential reading: “The median author income for full-time authors from their books was $10,000 in 2022, and their total median earnings from their book and other author-related income combined was $20,000.” The same report noted an encouraging but uneven rise among some independent writers: “Full-time self-published authors who had been publishing since at least 2018 reported a median income of $24,000 compared to $13,700 in 2018.”
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing explains that “When someone buys your paperback through Amazon or an Expanded Distribution channel … you receive a royalty … KDP now offers both a 50% or 60% royalty rate on paperbacks sold on Amazon marketplaces … We then subtract printing costs, which depend on trim size, page count, ink type, and the Amazon marketplace your paperback was ordered from.” That framework is changing. As Bublish recently reported, “On June 10, 2025, Amazon/KDP will be updating its royalty rates and printing costs for certain print books. New Royalty Structure: The royalty rate for print books priced below $9.99 USD will decrease from 60% to 50%.”
Taken together, these sources show two linked realities. Traditional deals may deliver an advance that offers short-term breathing room but come with lower downstream percentages on some formats and delayed payment schedules, while self-publishing can deliver higher percentage rates on certain sales but exposes the writer to platform policy changes, printing costs, and marketing obligations that often exceed the cost of the book itself.
What all of this leaves us with is the harder question — not which contract to sign, but what kind of life we’re choosing. The financial terms can be exposed; the emotional cost is less visible. Writing has always asked for more time than it returns, and it often asks for faith in a system that can’t guarantee a fair exchange. For some, that tension becomes the reason to walk away. For others, it becomes the only honest reason to stay.
The truth is that the money may never be enough to live on, and yet the work keeps calling. Creativity isn’t rational. You can treat it as a career if you have the stamina to turn your art into product and your days into small, measurable outcomes. Or you can treat it as an avocation — a practice that gives you a way to see the world clearly.
When I talk to writers who’ve been at it for decades, the dividing line is appetite. The ones still writing made peace with the uncertainty a long time ago. They built day jobs, teaching lives, freelance work, or partnerships that subsidize the habit. They see the business for what it is — a distribution system, not a measure of their voice.
The creative world suffers when we treat money as the sole proof of artistic validity, yet it also suffers when we ignore how money shapes access, opportunity, and endurance. The decision every writer faces is how much of that cost they’re willing to bear, and what they need to protect the part of themselves that writes freely despite the ledger.
So the question isn’t whether to write for love or money. It’s how to sustain a life that lets both exist without one erasing the other.
Lit Journals That Want Your Work
One Art: a journal of poetry has a Micro-poems anthology request opening November 1st going til December 15th. 10 lines or less. Free submissions!
If you are writing nonfiction, Business Insider is looking for pitches. It is free to pitch, but the piece can’t already be written (or at least they can’t know it is already written).
I just discovered Lucky Jefferson, which has a beautiful website. They are looking for work of all genres, including flash fiction (which is one of my favorites to write) and have different themes you can pick from to submit to. If you are an artist in any way, I recommend sending out your work to journals like this one!
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