Publishing and its Discontents: Authors, Incomes and Alternative Models

(Introductory paragraph only)
Australian cultural economist David Throsby has committed several decades to examining the economic context in which creative practitioners operate, and the findings are not encouraging. Report after report has found that, on average, writers make little more than pocket money from their writing. It is, however, rare for a larger publisher, at least, to contract any manuscript that is unlikely to make a profit for the company; publishing profits do not typically find their way to the authors. Further, since few major publishers are willing to invest in non-commercial work—poetry, literary fiction—such writers often turn to alternative modes to reach an audience. Sometimes this means adopting the tradition of self-publishing, whether in print or electronic media, in which case the author does all the work of production and distribution and retains any profits from sales. In other cases, it means signing with small presses, which may not generate much financial return, but provides membership of a literary community and, for those who sign with recognised small presses, a degree of literary consecration.