More Hitting Head Against Brick Wall

So, if there are any writers in the crowd, this article will confirm what you already know: the title says it all. Income for U.S. authors now has fallen below the poverty line. News? HAHAHAHAHAHA! The usual culprits are trotted out, the number one villain of course being amazon, who has single-handedly destroyed the book market. I understand that indies are sort of making a comeback, but that's basically a drop in the bucket compared to all the stores that went under in response to amazon's predatory pricing.

Some juicy quotes include:

Analysing responses from 1,674 authors in its first survey since 2009, the US organisation found that the median income from writing for an American author in 2014 was $8,000, down 24% from $10,500 six years ago. The majority (56%) of writers, it said, earned less from all of their writing-related activities than the $11,670 judged in 2014 to have been the minimum income needed by a one-person household in the US.

and

Earnings for full-time authors dropped 30% between 2009 and 2014, from $25,000 to $17,500, while the median income of part-time writers fell 38% over the period, from $7,250 to $4,500. Thirty-nine percent of respondents to the survey said their sole income came from writing.

Another interesting tidbit is that even if you are forced to self-publish (like I was):

Thirty-three percent of author reported self-publishing at least one book. Educational authors with traditional publishers, meanwhile, had the highest writing-related income in 2014, at $17,750, followed by traditionally published trade authors, at $10,250; self-published respondents earned $4,500. The biggest decline in income over the period was for traditionally published trade authors, at 28%; earnings for self-published authors were down 25%.

with the depressing conclusion that:

The rise of indie authors and their fan bases may be taking sales away from traditional publishers,” said Rasenberger. “Self-publishing may be a good way forward for many authors, but by and large indie authors are not making much money yet.

There you have it. That sound you hear is my head hitting the brick.