Afternoon:
14°c
It is the ultimate literary scare story: the Society of Authors has said its 8,500 members are so worried about declining incomes because of internet publishing that they may stop writing books. Is this a threat or a prediction?
Given the number of books published each year in Britain this may strike some as a blessing in disguise. British publishers produced 200,000 titles last year. Of these, 190,000 sold fewer than 3,500 copies. Of the 1.2 million titles sold in America in 2004 only 2 per cent sold more than 5,000 copies. The rise of the internet may well do us all a favour by sorting out the wheat from the chaff. As Tony Soprano said, albeit in a different context: "It's over for the little guy."
The debate does highlight another concern - about how difficult it is to make a living out of writing. A recent survey of writers' incomes showed that the average income of all respondents was just £4,000. For professional writers it was "£12,300". The moral of the story - or rather the statistics - is don't write unless you can afford it. For every JK Rowling out there, thousands are toiling in what George Gissing called "the valley of the shadow of books". His novel New Grub Street was all about the difficulties of writing in a commercial environment. Nothing has changed since it was published in 1891.
Hanif Kureishi may have been paid around £150,000 for his latest novel, Something to Tell You, but it took him five years to write. That doesn't work out at a very good annual return. Especially when you take into account agent's fees, tax and so on. Given top footballers earn that much money a each week it seems like peanuts.
Maybe more authors should stop writing books. JG Ballard, who juggled writing with bringing up three children as a single parent, believes a lot of them have only themselves to blame. "I have been constantly struck by how few of our literary writers are aware that their poor sales might be the result of their modest concern for their readers," he reflects in his memoir, Miracles of Life. He has a point.
BS Johnson is singled out as "one of those literary writers who receive a glowing review in the Times Literary Supplement, believe every word of praise and imagine that it will ensure them a prosperous career, when in fact such a review is no more than the literary world's equivalent of "Darling, you were wonderful".
Darlings, you are all wonderful, but please stop bleating about laying down your pens. It's the proverbial equivalent of crying wolf. Lay down your pen if you must - but the rest of us will carry on reading regardless.
