UK Authors’ Earnings and Contracts 2022: A Survey of 60,000 Writers

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a survey of UK Authors’ Earnings and Contracts conducted in 2022 by CREATe (the UK Copyright & Creative Economy Research Centre based at the University of Glasgow). The survey builds on previous, longitudinal and comparative research enabling us to track trends in earnings and working conditions over 16 years.

This report is situated amidst an arguably global trend towards the de-valuing of creative labour. The survey also took place in the aftermath of two hugely disruptive events for UK authors: the Covid-19 pandemic (the first UK lockdown started on 23 March 2020), and Brexit (the transition period ended on 1 January 2021). We find that, despite being sometimes heralded as great equalisers, these events had significant and disproportionate effects on certain groups of authors. While some of their effects may have not fully materialised, neither Covid-19 nor Brexit appear to have fundamentally changed the creative labour markets; rather, they have accelerated existing trends.

In line with previous surveys, we focus on the group of primary occupation authors for comparison over time. Primary occupation authors are those who allocate at least 50% of their working time to writing. We chart a decline in median (typical) earnings from self-employed writing among primary occupation authors of 38.2% (in real terms) since the last survey in 2018 (i.e., from £11,329 to £7,000). Even more dramatically, we see a sustained downward trend over the past two decades that seems to be associated with changes to creative labour markets in the digital environment.

Following this decline in earnings, there are serious questions over the future of writing as a profession. Authors always had to rely on a portfolio of earnings to make a living, but this dependency is increasing.
We find that, consistent with previous reports, the number of authors who report that writing is their primary occupation stagnates at around 50% of the total writing population. However, we chart a noticeable decline in the number of authors who earn all of their income from writing, decreasing from 40% of the total sample of primary occupation authors in 2006, to 28% in 2018, and now 19% as of 2022.

As with many cultural markets, the profession of writing is characterised by winner-takes-all dynamics and extremely high levels of earnings inequality. We find that the top 10% of authors earn about 47% of the total income of the population. Many authors appear to rely on other members of their household to supplement their income. In compiling a detailed demographic profile of the authors surveyed, we find that certain characteristics make it harder for an author to earn a living. Women, black and mixed-race authors, the very young, and very old, all earn less than their respective counterparts. They also are less likely to have access to a household subsidy. This has implications for the diversity of creative production.

Contracts appear to be changing the authors’ earnings landscape with implications for long-term earning potential. Advances are becoming rarer, with almost half of all authors never having received any such payment. Buy-out contracts, by contrast, are becoming increasingly common, increasing in frequency from 25% in the 2018 survey to 32% in 2021.

Copyright continues to be little understood and under-utilised by authors. Whilst over half of the authors we surveyed feel moderately confident in their knowledge of copyright, we find evidence of misconceptions which potentially curtail an author’s earning potential through the realisation of their rights. Authors report that the increasing use of boilerplate publishing contracts is creating a culture of apathy in respect of moral rights; authors must either agree to waive their right to be acknowledged for their work, or leave potentially lucrative publishing deals.

In a detailed qualitative analysis of the effects of Covid-19 on authors’ earnings and working lives, we find that the pandemic had a negative effect on the majority of authors. Whilst some changes in lifestyle suggest moderate improvements to an author’s financial situation (e.g., saving on commuting costs), substantial improvements appear reserved to recipients of large, one-off grants and advances. We also find a distinct gendered element to experiences of Covid, with men more frequently reporting a positive or neutral experience of the pandemic than women. This may be explained by the existence of another form of household subsidy in the form of emotive and physical household labour, with women’s career routes and sources of incomes more readily destabilised by changing working conditions.

We also conducted investigations into a group of authors who are very exposed to digital trends, authors in the audio-visual sector. Despite a booming industry, the value of audio-visual streaming does not seem to be filtering through to authors. We chart the conditions of audio-visual authors to give explanatory value to this, documenting the changing contractual landscape for authors, and the bottleneck of payments in the industry.

Keywords: copyright, contract, earnings, labour markets, Gini, Covid, Brexit

JEL Classification: O34, K00, L82, D23, J20