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The Sorry Tale of Contemporary Authorship: A Study of Scottish Authors

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Abstract

This paper gives a detailed overview of contemporary authorship in Scotland through the analysis of interviews with and a survey of Scottish authors. These results are compared to previous studies to highlight the changing nature of authorship over the years. Both the survey and interview results paint a pessimistic picture of authorship in the twenty-first century, with the majority of authors earning very little from their writing and depending on alternative avenues to improve their income. Additionally, Scottish authors are not benefiting from the numerous new platforms to exploit their work through, which could help to enhance their income. This is partly because many Scottish authors still have a traditional view of publishing and do not think about their work commercially, and partly because, in many cases, their rights are controlled by their publishers and not widely exploited. This survey also found that Scottish authors with London literary agents earned more income than their counterparts with Scottish agents; however, this was mainly because they were more likely to be published with London publishers. This shows that Scottish publishers are failing their authors by not fostering their rights efficiently and effectively: fostering these rights more effectively could help supplement authors’ income.

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Notes

  1. The proliferation of self-publishing occurred after the survey and interviews were conducted, so this issue was not covered in the research.

  2. A survey conducted by the ALCS in 2007 found that the average wage for an author in the UK was £16,531, while the typical wage was £4,000 [3].

  3. The amount that celebrities earn from these memoirs, especially when they are ghost written, has caused contention amongst some authors [15].

  4. The respondents were allowed to choose more than one answer for this particular question and the answers showed that many respondents wrote in more than one genre.

  5. This is discounting the respondents who refused to disclose their annual wage.

  6. This included authors who did not receive an advance.

  7. This author was with a big London agency but left when that agency merged with another big agency to become a conglomerate cross-media agency.

  8. Other reasons for hiring an agent include: To have a presence in London since the author is based in Scotland, and editorial value.

  9. The remaining percentage is made up of authors who do not know who owns the rights and authors answered not applicable.

  10. The remaining percentage is comprised of ‘do not know’ and ‘n/a’.

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  1. Department of Information Science, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK

    Melanie Ramdarshan Bold

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  1. Melanie Ramdarshan Bold
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Correspondence to Melanie Ramdarshan Bold.

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Ramdarshan Bold, M. The Sorry Tale of Contemporary Authorship: A Study of Scottish Authors. Pub Res Q 29, 73–92 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-012-9301-4

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