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Since The Bookseller’s site is down I’m reprinting this email article in full (block quotes omitted):

Man Booker-winning author Graham Swift has said there is a danger aspiring writers may be put off from writing if the rates they are paid decrease in the digital age.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s “The World at One” yesterday [17th August], Swift said that, though a reader choosing an e-book over a paper book “doesn’t matter” for them, “that happy and balanced picture changes rather when you think about the other end of that process and the author”. He said: “Unfortunately, writers take a very small part of the profit on their books and I think that in the e-book world there is a danger that they will take even less, unless they are vigilant and robust about protecting their interests.”

He said the situation with digital earnings could lead writers to abandon their works: “I wouldn’t envy a young aspiring writer now, and I have to say that the e-book does seem at the moment to threaten the livelihood  of writers because the way in which writers are paid for their work in the form of an e-book is very much up in the air.

“I think the tendency will be that writers will get even less than they do now for their work, and sadly that could mean that some potential writers will see that they can’t make a living, they will give up, and then the world will be poorer for the books that they might have written, and in that way it is quite a serious prospect.”

Swift also said it was even harder to sustain the idea of the value of a book in the digital age, as the whole experience of reading a book is “immaterial” and cannot be seen. He said: “I think the purveyors of e-books
are only too happy to let this atmosphere of everything belongs to everyone increase because it means that they don’t have to think so much themselves about the original maker of the thing, or they can get away with paying them less. I think that’s the danger.”

He also raised concerns over authors having to earn a living through readings and events, rather than writing. He said: “I would hate to think if that were the case. The main thing is the book itself, the essence of the thing is this entity that is produced in a writer’s mind and then translates into an experience in a reader’s mind and you can’t really reproduce that experience in any other way, you can’t perform a book.”

He recounted a story about Lewis Carroll taking Alice in Wonderland to Macmillan and saying he would give them a 10% royalty for its sales if they published it. He said: “In my view, that is the correct arrangement, but of course it would be sheer wonderland now to go to a publisher and say: ‘I can give you a royalty’.”

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7 COMMENTS

  1. It’s nice to confirm that I’m not the only “aspiring author” who seems to think I should be able to–gasp!–make money writing, just as those who blithely download creative works without paying for them would not dream of doing their own jobs for no pay. For all the heady talk of how much creative individuals are prized in this culture, it’s amazing how shoddy they are treated by the public.

  2. So if publishers set lower royalty rates for e-books than for paper books, he assumes that the technology is at fault. Perhaps he should actually think about why royalty rates are lower instead of just taking the luddite approach.

  4. So, as a reader it’s my fault that an author signed a bad ebook deal with a publisher? Um, no. If an author wants decent royalties, there are ways of getting them (such as self-pubbing through Amazon or B&N, or using indie publishers) but if the author sacrifices royalties just to go with a big name publisher, I have no sympathy and won’t be guilted into picking paper over digital because of it. Authors have to take responsiblity for their own financial interests and not blame readers for authors’ poor choices.

  5. Nobody makes money ‘just’ doing one thing, though. All living-earning jobs have more than one component, and some of them you’ll like better than others. I am a teacher, but my job is not ‘just’ teaching, it’s also staff meetings and playground duty and holiday concerts etc. To say that I should be able to make a living ‘just’ teaching is disingenuous. Similarly, part of ‘making a living’ as a writer is doing the promo, like it or not. That is what separates the ‘making a living’ people from the hobbyist people, imho. The hobbyist people ‘just’ do the writing. Nobody owes anybody a living just doing parts of a job that they like. Business just doesn’t work that way. And if you are talking about ‘making a living’ at it, then yes, art is a business too. Even authors like Atwood (who is way bigger than Swift) do author tours and other promo stuff!

  6. But this isn’t really the public that Mr. Swift is talking about is it? He is specifically talking about the way that publishers treat authors and the attempts of the big publishers to use ebooks as an excuse to shrink the royalty they pay writers. That being said, I think there is a regrettable attitude on the part of both the publishers and certain segment of the public that somehow authors are horribly overpaid and therefore it doesn’t matter if they are not compensated for their work. At least in regards to publishers, I think they may find that authors are going to be increasingly willing to use self publishing portals like smashwords, or even go independent entirely. If they don’t pay their authors, they will loose them. It might mean more work on the author’s part (he will have to hire an editor and do his own promotion), but the rewards could be much greater as well.

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