Authors Earnings & Contracts in the News...

Authors earnings have been in the news this week with the initial results of the 2017 ALCS Authors Earnings Survey.

There's more detail to come in the autumn when the details will be revealed in more depth, but meanwhile you can read how the news and ALCS have reacted.

Richard Combes, Head of Rights and Licensing at the ALCS on the Bookseller.com website.

In the Guardian Philip Pullman is quoted "The word exploitation comes to mind..."


Meanwhile The All Party Parliamentary Group for Writers has launched an enquiry on author's earnings (UK) "and seeks to identify what environment writers need to enable them to flourish in the future".

The deadline for written evidence is 5 pm on the 2nd August.

I will be submitting written evidence.


As to contracts, the latest news is that Woman's Weekly magazine now want all rights- including a moral rights waver and the pay-cut.

This will severely damage the earning potential of writers who have already seen markets closed, submission lists restricted, and contract changes eating into rights.

For those who may not know, these fiction writers rely on being able to reuse their stories in overseas markets, and as part of a self-published collection of short stories, and then most importantly qualifying for ALCS (Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society).

It's an ongoing situation so keep an eye on the Womagwriter's Blog for more news. You can find out what's been happening so far here and also here.

If you're on Twitter and see a tweet with the hashtag #WomagWritersNeedRights please give it a retweet...

Saving the pennies...

image from Pixabay.com

Sick Leave...

Having thought I'd managed to get through winter without any major health problems, the last bugs of winter have struck.

The nasty cold bugs that have been going round my family- and quite a few friends too- has finally overcome my defences, and I'm coughing and spluttering a lot- day and night; consequently my breathing is not as good as is desirable. So it's going to be a trip to the GP surgery to sort out my asthma...

Oh, and rearrange my dental appointments too. :(

So I'm sure you'll understand my brain is a bit hazy at the moment. But I do want to leave you with something to read about.

Last week a YouGov survey announced that 60% thought being an author was the most desirable job to have in Britain...

This announcement resulted in newspaper articles, that in turn got bloggers blogging.

Chas Newkey-Burden in the Telegraph books section gave '14 reasons why you shouldn't dream of being a full-time author', and while his reasons were all valid, most writers cannot afford to become full-time authors as they need their daytime job to pay the bills and eat- and if you're female there's often your family to factor into it all.

Tim Lott in the Guardian books section added his opinion too, including an obvious plug for his current writing related work with the newspaper.

These inspired Sally Quilford to write her response, '14 reasons I wouldn't want to be anything but an author'.

And another brilliant piece from Jane Lovering's 'From Behind the Keyboard'.

It's quite possible that within that 60% there were people who want to be authors, but haven't yet taken that first step on the very long and bumpy road; but sadly, I suspect many think that it is easy to write a book and be a JK Rowling, a Dan Brown or EL James, sell millions of books, make millions and get films made of your work, because the media makes so much of the breakthroughs.

If you want to write, you will do it, however long it may take you, and however much you need to learn.

We'll continue to write because we have to. Because we love doing what we do.

And honestly, you would not want to eavesdrop on my subconscious at any time- it would give you a severe headache. :)

What Published Writers Think About Their Publishers...

A survey was recently undertaken by The Writers Workshop that was only open to professional authors, and on Thursday Harry Bingham posted the results. You can read the piece here.

As a would-be novelist it's interesting to see how the 321 published respondents answered the questions set them.

After all they have agents and publishers already, so they should be relatively happy, right?

Well some don't seem to be when you look at the data closely- look here.

I think most of us know that writing books is not going to make us rich- though if your initials are JKR that won't apply- and any advance you are likely to get has got to go toward supporting you while you write the next book; as it can be quite a while before your latest manuscript reaches the shelves in its novel form, and starts earning back the advance, so you can then start getting royalties...

But £1,000-£5,000 seems to be the going advance rate for many authors- not much once you split it into three to reflect the different stages.

I know from discussions with other writers that marketing is very important if you want to get book sales, especially if you've self-published or have e-books for sale.

So I was quite surprised by the answer to the question on whether the authors were closely consulted on the publisher's marketing plan. 99 of those who answered opted for 'there was no attempt at consultation'.
And those who had consultation were not that impressed either (that's my interpretation).

The good news is that payments were clear and prompt, so that's good news among the less encouraging.


Nicola Morgan of Help! I Need A Publisher! has two valid points to add to the comments.


There are a lot more interesting responses to a variety of questions, so I recommend you take the time to read all the data.

Despite some of the negatives the data highlights, I doubt that many writers would turn down the opportunity to have a well-known publisher supporting them.

We just need to remember that when that happens, it's best to leave the rose-tinted glasses behind...

Some Interesting Results for Historical Fiction...

A few weeks ago- okay perhaps slightly more than a few weeks- I followed a link to a survey on Historical fiction reading. This wasn't aimed at Historical Romance, or writers, it was for Historical Fiction readers generally.

Well the answers have been collated, and it certainly raises some interesting aspects about reading historical fiction, that even romance writers might find useful; many of the answers probably won't be a surprise.

In Mary Tod's survey results, which you'll find in a link on her blog 'A Writer of History-thoughts about writing historical fiction', the responses to the question asking 'Have you always enjoyed historical fiction?' showed (that of the 805 people (of both sexes) who responded to the survey) that 533 had been reading HF since they were a child/teenager.

The most popular reason for reading historical fiction was to "bring the past to life, appreciating how people lived and coped in very different times."
A good example of why getting your novel's setting, and the lifestyle and behaviour of your characters right is important.

And "a great story" was the second popular option...

For the many writers of Medieval and Tudor based stories, you're clearly producing work for the favoured time period.

There's a lot more information to discover including the frequent book or e-book buying preference.

So pop over to Mary's blog and find out more...