3 things I’d like to change about the publishing industry

Whenever authors gather, we will complain about the publishing industry. Guaranteed. Why? Let me count the ways (because most of us can count those ways a lot more easily than we can count the money we earn from publishing). In this case, I’ll only be counting to 3, which is good, because I haven’t had my caffeine yet. Read on for my list of 3 things I’d like to change about the publishing industry.

Before I attempt advanced mathematics: This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) blog hop. On the first Wednesday of every month, we IWSG-ers share our doubts, fears, struggles, and triumphs. Our awesome co-hosts this month are Rebecca Douglass, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Cathrina Constantine, and Jacqui Murray. Please stop by and leave them some comment love. Each month our fearless leader (Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh) gives us an optional question to answer. This month’s question is, Is there anything you’d like to see changed, added, and/or rearranged about the book publishing industry?

Disclaimer: I’m still a fledgling author without a published book, so I am absolutely not an expert on the publishing industry. Also, nothing I write here is intended to criticize publishers, editors, marketers, agents, authors, or readers. I don’t think any of those folks are to blame for the issues I’m going to discuss. If you want to blame something, blame good old supply and demand.

With all that out of the way, here we go:

3 things I’d like to change about the publishing industry

1. Author incomes

According to the Author’s Guild’s 2023 Author Income Survey (the most recent one they’ve published), the median annual income for a full-time author was $20,000 per year. I made more than that in my first librarian job… in 1992. Also, that was their total income from all author- and book-related sources, including editing, teaching, speaking, etc. The median income for full-time authors from their books alone was: $10,000.

$10,000.

The median for a full-time author.

Let me remind you what a median is. If you line up all the values from most to least, the median is the middle one. In other words, half the authors who responded to the survey made less than $10,000 per year on their books.

That’s… depressing.

The numbers are a little better for authors of commercial books (as opposed to academic, scholarly, and educational books). The median income for that group is $15,000 for books alone and $25,000 for all author-related income.

Still depressing.

The Authors’ Guild notes, “This means half of all full-time authors continue to earn below minimum wage in many states from all their writing related work, and well below the federal minimum wage of just $7.25/hour from their books.”

Now let’s get even more depressed. So far we’ve been talking about full-time authors. When we add in part-time authors (you know… most of us who aren’t retired or blessed with some non-work source of funds), the median book income was $2000 and the median income from all author-related activities was $5000.

*sob*

The report breaks down income for self-published vs. traditionally published authors as well as by genre, so check out the link if you’re curious. Spoiler alert: romance is the top-earning genre and by a wide margin–but the median income still isn’t enough to live on in many if not most parts of the country.

What’s the takeaway here (besides my chances of publication are less than winning the lottery after being simultaneously bitten by a shark and struck by lightning)? Don’t become an author for the money. Do it because you love it or feel called to do it, or don’t bother.

2. Barriers to publication

If you’re willing to accept that you probably won’t make much money, you still face significant hurdles in getting your work out there.

Barriers to traditional publishing

In my last few posts, I’ve shared my query stats as I’ve sought to secure an agent. Spoiler alert: I failed. And so do the vast majority of writers. And for those who are new to the publishing world, you need an agent to get published by the large publishing houses and some of the smaller publishers as well.

Many querying authors use QueryTracker to, well, track their queries (it’s right there in the name). QueryTracker lets you compare your stats to those of the average member. Here’s what that looks like for me:

Notice the rates for the average member: 89.4% negative reply rate, 3.8% positive reply rate. (Negative replies include query rejections and non-responses; positive replies include partial and full requests, revise & resubmits, requesting additional pages, and offers of representation.) So fewer than 4% of queries get anything other than a rejection. And, spoiler alert, most of those positive replies also result in rejections, just further down the process.

Many small presses don’t require an agent, but they too often have way more submissions than they can publish.

Barriers to self-publishing

If you don’t care about quality or sales, there are few barriers to self-publishing. You’ll need to learn how to upload your manuscript to Amazon or another self-publishing platform and learn a few rules and processes, or you can slap it up on your website and let people read it for free.

However, if you want to create a quality product that people might actually want to buy, there will be additional steps, and those steps can be expensive and/or time-consuming. According to Reedsy (How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book in 2026?), average costs for self-publishing break down like this:

• Editing: $2160-5040
• Cover design: $960
• Formatting: $0-1030
• Marketing: $60-500/year

Total: $3180-7530

Now, I know authors who spend less than $3000 to self-publish, but there’s a different kind of cost to cutting corners: you either need to develop your own expertise in one or more of the above areas, or you need to compromise on quality or visibility. And before anyone else says it: yes, people are using generative AI to do all these things for free/cheap, but 1) you get what you pay for, and AI slop sucks, and 2) LLMs are built on stolen property, specifically the works of other authors and artists. I’ll risk pissing some people off by saying I think there are ways genAI can be useful for authors, but not by replacing human creativity.

3. Scams

I get 2 or 3 emails per week from scammers, usually phony book marketers trying to get me to shell out money to market my (non-existent) books. Other scams include fake publishers and agents, book clubs that are thrilled to read your book–if you pay them, fake film adaptations, fake reviewers who want you to pay for reviews, and more. Scammers are having a field day (and probably earning big paydays) with authors, because of the realities I outlined above: hugely disproportionate supply and demand, huge barriers to traditional publication, huge barriers to successful self-publication (cost, supply and demand). Authors are desperate, and desperate people are prey.

A big shout-out to Writer Beware, which provides outstanding coverage of slimy behavior in the literary world. Check their site if you’re unsure about whether something in your inbox is legit.

How to create a better landscape for authors

This is a tough question, and the one I feel unqualified to answer. I’d love to see the issues above improve for authors, but I have no idea how to do that. The market is the market, and the reality is that there are far more people who want to write books than there are agents, slots with publishers, and, most importantly, demand from readers. Also, editors, formatters, and cover designers deserve to get paid. And scammers deserve public hanging but are almost never held accountable in any way, and AI makes it easier than ever for them to identify targets and create scam emails.

*sigh*

According to Publisher’s Weekly, over 4 million books with ISBNs were published in the US in 2025, a 32.5% increase over 2024. 3.5 million of those were self-published. It’s extremely difficult to stand out in such a crowded field, and even avid readers can only read so much. We’re also competing with streaming and scrolling for people’s entertainment dollars. I’d love to see more people choose books. (Fun fact: According to the Pew Research Center, 75% of US adults have read at least part of a book in the last year, so people are reading. At least a little.) I’d love to see literacy rates improve. (Not-so-fun facts: According to the National Literacy Institute, 54% of US adults read below 6th grade level, and 20% below 5th grade level.)

What do to about all of this? I have no idea.

What I do know is this:

Why I write anyway

C’mon, you didn’t really think I was going to make this post a total downer, did you? I write because I love to have written (and sometimes I even enjoy the act of writing). I love to have someone read my stuff and tell me they liked it. That ego boost is worth more than money to me, mostly because I have a day job that pays the bills. I write because I always dreamed of writing and spent the first 40+ years of my life thinking I couldn’t.

In the words of Simon Sinek, find your why. Let that purpose guide you and keep you going. Don’t do it for money or fame or anything external.

Do it for you.

Writing updates

No exciting updates this month (that seems to be a theme lately), but I now have 2 wonderful critique partners, and they are helping me make regular, if slow, progress on editing Delta Dawn. I’ve also been thinking more about whether to revise and resubmit Vanishing, Inc. to the 2 agents who suggested I do so. I have some ideas for revisions and just need to carve out the time to tackle them. Anyone wanna give me a nice, fat trust fund so I can quit my day job and live a life of literary leisure?

Yeah, didn’t think so. Y’all are no fun.

I’m also still waiting on the results of the Central Valley Fiction Writers flash fiction contest, which should be announced at our meeting on July 11.

Life updates

I’m in my summer groove now. Work has slowed down (hallelujah), and so far the weather is staying mild (only low 90s this week–also hallelujah). I’m settling into a regular, if unambitious, fitness routine and trying to enjoy life. Long-Suffering Husband is hanging in there and doing well on his new treatment regimen. We’re taking life one day at a time and trying to make time for fun.

Last month, “fun” included a spontaneous trip to Sequoia National Park, which is only about 90 minutes from our home (why yes, I do love living in California). A few pics (click to view larger size):

The memery

First up: reviews.

When you get a bad review, remember: some people actually think Yosemite turns off its waterfalls. And if you love the idea of national parks getting bad reviews–or you just need a few good laughs–check out Subpar Parks, which highlights the truly ridiculous things people post in bad reviews of wonderful places. They have an Instagram and a shop.

I think I’ve found a solution to the first 2 problems I talk about in this post:

Now go sell your soul and buy some books. Authors gotta eat, ya know.

Or you can be like me: “How’s the writing going?” Thanks for asking! I’ve read three books this week and am about to finish a fourth.

“How’s the cleaning going?” Thanks for asking! I’ve read three books this week and am about to finish a fourth.

And finally:

Someone please make this happen before I die.

And on that comically morbid (or morbidly comical) note: I’m outta here. Go buy some books! And don’t die.