More Author Earning Data: Making a Living or No?

I haven’t updated the spreadsheet I pulled a few weeks ago, but here are the numbers from the last I pulled.

There are some data quality problems here. The low end of people who say they’re making a living writing? I don’t think $450 is a likely real response. Likewise, some of the higher numbers from people who say they’re not making a living writing would be perfectly respectable incomes for many. I’m not judging people’s responses here, just pointing out that there may have been some incorrect yes/no responses.

And, as always, this is self-reported data, so take it with a grain of salt.

Authors Saying they Make a Living Writing

Type	#	25%	50%	75%	90%	95%	100%
Self	160	25,000	51,000	140,000	305,000	500,000	13,000,000
Hybrid	103	55,000	103,000	235,000	540,000	1,025,000	3,663,000
Trad	27	18,300	55,000	100,000	215,000	250,000	450,000

Authors Who Say They’re Not Make a Living Writing

Type	#	25%	50%	75%	90%	95%	100%
Self	571	150	800	5000	15,000	24,000	113,000
Hybrid	78	2,300	10,200	20,000	40,008	50,000	89,150
Trad	54	500	4,000	17,500	35,000	50,000	60,000

Originally published at deirdre.net. You can comment here or there.