Revolution

I'm not a salesman.  I'm not a leader.  I'm not even very good at being sold to, or being lead.

I like the idea of a fair share.  After all, Fair Trade works on the principal that those that do the work should receive a fair amount of pay for that work.

Yet the more I look into the writing world the more I see the last bastion of unfair trading.

In my mind the individual that has the idea, deciphers and translates that into a gripping tale, then does the leg work trying to get agents and publishers interested in it deserves a relatively large proportion of the money gained from it being to the public's liking.  So why is this not the case in writing?

I was once reliably informed that an author can expect 12% of the royalties from their work.

Let us put that in real terms.

You would be getting 72p for each copy on a book retailing at £5.99.  According to the UK National Statistic Online the average salary in the UK is £27,976 which means you would have to sell 38,855 copies of your book to earn the national average wage.  Whereas that is not impossible it relies entirely on the time, effort and resources the agency and publisher puts in.  When they are trying to do the same for their other writers it can seem quite a daunting task.

What that figure does make you see is that if you could increase your royalties per book you could increase your earnings without having to spend more money on publicity and advertising.

Selling through the likes of Kobo offers the writer the chance to net an 85% return on each sale.  Given the same numbers one would only have to sell 5,496 books to achieve the national average wage and, therefore, a living from doing what you love.

I know writing isn't all about the money but I am one of those writers that wants to be a writer for a living and in order to do that I need to cover actually living.