There’s a reason we don’t have our novels written by economists
Not that novels written by economists would necessarily be bad but they’d also be no better than those written by any other random section of the population. So it is with economics promulgated by novelists:
For a good whack of the 100,000 writers and translators in the UK, finding out how many books they have sold in the run-up to Christmas will mean the difference between turning on the heating and sitting shivering through the January frost. Many in the latter camp will be forced to accept that life as a professional novelist, poet or dramatist is no longer sustainable. Time to close the book. The end.
Can it be so bad? Surely novelists aren’t really on the breadline? Well, given that the median income for professional writers fell from £12,330 in 2007 to £7,000 in 2022, you can see why most will be desperately hoping for a festive bump in earnings. A bohemian life in a freezing garret only sounds attractive to those who have never lived it.
In a country proud of its literary history, we’re at a tipping point when the number of books and plays written could soon collapse with the number of people who can afford to create them.
Well, apparently the UK publishes some 200,000 new books each year. With sales of perhaps 220 million copies of all books - so, the classics included. Even if we don’t include the classics that would mean average sales of some 1,000 copies each for each of the new ones. It is possible to think too many books are being written. It’s also possible to think that there are too few good ones. But it’s very difficult indeed to then follow on to this insistence:
Direct financial assistance
At which point, ah, no.
There’s a macroeconomic case, too
No, really, there isn’t.
The point is made that lots of tax is collected. But look at that average income. There is no tax on incomes that low.
And this is before we even get to the idea of what books written by those on a government dole will be like. This has been tried and there’s very little from the Union of Soviet Writers that still gets read, let alone grips. Indeed, the literature from that period that does still interest is the very stuff written by those starving in garrets - the samizdat.
There is zero case for the public or tax subsidy of writers. For we have not got a shortage of things being written.
Tim Worstall
And yes, my own latest came out a few days back. Gross revenue, from those sales into the ever so excited base, seem to be about to reach the cost of the cover design. Woo Hoo! Which is as it should be. Even scribblers should only get paid if consumers desire the output.