In February this year, a Macquarie University team led by David Throsby surveyed 1,000 authors of trade and educational titles as part of a three- year research project to understand how changes to the publishing industry are affecting authors, publishers and readers.

Impact of change

The report found that genre fiction authors, including romance writers, have benefitted the most from changes to the publishing industry. Twenty-five percent of genre authors reported that their financial position had improved over the last five years. Thirteen percent indicated that they earned more than $101,000 in the 2013-14 financial year. In contrast, literary authors have experienced a drop in income over the past five years.

The survey discovered that 25% of authors are self-published indie authors. Forty-two percent of authors work with one publisher only while one third of authors work with two or more publishers.

The report speculates that one of the reasons…