2016 Writing Income Survey
For nine years, I’ve been doing an annual blog post about my writing income. It’s not something we talk about very much, and I think the more data we put out there, the more helpful it is to other writers.
The trouble is, I’m just one data point. Better than none, of course. But this year, I decided to try something a little different, and created a 2016 Novelist Income Survey.
The process and goals are similar to the First Novel Survey I did seven years ago. (The results of that one are a little outdated at this point…) I’ll be sharing the basic data like the median, mean, and range of author incomes, as well as looking at patterns and other correlations. No personal or identifying information will be shared in any way.
If you’ve published at least one novel in any genre — it doesn’t matter whether you published through a large press, a smaller press, or published it yourself — please take a few minutes to answer the 21-question survey about your writing income for 2016.
I intend to keep the survey open at least through the end of the month. Possibly longer, depending on how many responses we’ve gotten by then.
Please feel free to spread the word to other authors and writer groups. The more data we get, the better the results!
Thank you.
Gwen Katz
January 2, 2017 @ 8:02 pm
What if you sold a book in 2016 but it isn’t published until 2017?
Jim C. Hines
January 2, 2017 @ 8:09 pm
Gwen – I’m afraid for purposes of this year’s survey, that wouldn’t count. (Unless you had previously-published novels.)
Either way, congratulations on the sale!
Pamela Freeman
January 3, 2017 @ 6:15 am
I had trouble with the ‘how many novels have you published’ question as I often write children’s books which are not always ‘novels’. I didn’t include those which weren’t primarily prose-based (eg picture books), nor the non-fiction. But for children’s writers, illustrated books, both fiction and non-fiction, are a substantial (and long-lasting) part of our income. I also didn’t include Educational or Public Lending Right, which is again a large part of children’s writers’ incomes, especially in Australia where we are compensated for our books in school libraries. So my reported income was primarily from my adult novels.
Morgan Mandel
January 3, 2017 @ 7:57 am
I usually get a book done each year, and 2016 was no exception. However, my writing income was so pathetic in 2016 that I’m too embarrassed to take the survey. I need to rethink my marketing strategy.
Rachel Aaron
January 3, 2017 @ 12:21 pm
Filled it out and did my bit to spread the word! I hope you get a ton of replies. Super interested to see the results!!
LJ Cohen
January 3, 2017 @ 12:25 pm
Jim- did a bunch of signal boosting and filled it out myself. A few days before I saw your survey, I actually did this blogpost that laid out the past 5 years of my earnings & sales as an indie. http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com/2016/12/my-life-as-writer-numbers-earnings.html
Jim C. Hines
January 3, 2017 @ 1:44 pm
LJ – Thank you! And that blog post looks great. I need to dive in and read that one more closely.
Jim C. Hines
January 3, 2017 @ 1:44 pm
Rachel – You and me both, thank you! We’re already past 250 responses, which blows my mind. I know the response rate will slow down, but I think we’re going to have some good information here.
Jim C. Hines
January 3, 2017 @ 1:46 pm
Morgan – It’s totally up to you, of course. But I’d encourage you to fill it out anyway. We all have ups and downs. That’s one of the realities I’m hoping more people will be aware of. There’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about.
Jim C. Hines
January 3, 2017 @ 1:46 pm
Pamela – Thank you for that info. This is the first time I’ve done this particular survey. When and if I do it again, I’ll definitely try to keep those details in mind!
Dira Lewis
January 3, 2017 @ 4:05 pm
Is novel length strictly defined by the Hugo standard, 40,000 words? I mostly self-publish, and my most successful self-pub book this year was a bit under that, at 34k. It was formatted and marketed as a standalone book, so I feel like classifying it as “short fiction” is going to skew my numbers in a pretty misleading way, but otoh it actually is that short and made that much money, so…
Jim C. Hines
January 3, 2017 @ 7:07 pm
Dira – Good question! That sounds like a novella to me, which is a different category, but often still published as a standalone work. But it’s your work, so it’s your call how you want to classify it. Different types of fiction have different expectations in terms of length, too.
Patricia McLinn
January 4, 2017 @ 11:57 am
The number of books published in each category is gong to be misleading for me. I originally published 27 books in 25 years with traditional publishers. Yet on the survey I didn’t show any books as traditionally published, because Indie publication has outearned traditional across the board. OTOH, having rights-reverted backlist titles has greatly bolstered my indie income. So to not have an indication of their publication of origin is misleading. I know … the limitations of a survey. But did want to note this for caveats when you compile.
Jim C. Hines
January 4, 2017 @ 12:06 pm
Patricia – So noted, thank you 🙂
Morven Westfield
January 12, 2017 @ 8:41 am
I started to fill this out, but had to reboot my computer. I should be getting ready for a convention today, so I’ll finish it next week. Looking forward to seeing the responses!
Jim C. Hines
January 12, 2017 @ 9:26 am
Morven – Thank you. And have fun at the con!