Does Writing Pay?: The Average Author Salary in 2023 (2024)

If you are an author, or are considering becoming an author, your probably wondering about the average author salary. Is an author salary enough to get by in 2023? Do you need another gig? Are you getting paid enough for your work? How much do authors make anyway?

Those are common questions (and good ones to ask if you're thinking about becoming an author), but the reality is…

The answer isn't simple.

Determining how much money you’ll make when you become an author is complex because no two authors are the same, and several factors affect how much you earn from your writing career.

The wide variance in how much individual authors actually earn from their book sales is also caused by obscurity around the subject of financial earnings, which is not very transparent.

Some writers are of the mind that money should not be a measurement of success in writing at all and refuse to share insights, while others advocate for sharing book earning statements in order to embrace the realities and raise awareness of the average author salary.

And sharing how much money a writer makes is taboo for some simply because they are shy about how little, or how much, they actually make from their books.

No matter what your opinion is on the subject, you’re curious…

So, how much do authors make?

While there isn’t a baseline number to report on how much authors actually make, it’s important to realize that author salary has a very wide range. Some authors make millions, and others don’t make a penny.

With so many factors to consider when calculating an author salary, it’s important to determine how, and why, the publishing world has such a variance in author income levels.

In an effort to make the topic of an author salary less obscure, we will take a closer look at the income of several writers in this report, and will continue updating this list.But before we dive into the average author salary, let's take a closer look at what an author salary is and what it encompasses.

What is an author salary?

An author salary is the total amount of money that an author makes in any given year. The term ‘income’ is often used interchangeably with ‘salary’, both in this post and in the world-at-large.

Because authors are usually self-employed and organize their work by book project, an author salary can vary substantially from year-to-year.

A year in which an author writes two books will likely mean a higher author salary than a year when they don’t write any. That’s why it is important for authors to continually work on completing their projects and sharing them with the world.

This applies to both self-published and traditionally published authors. A self-published author might have more freedom in developing their completion timelines, but this also means that they are responsible for keeping themselves accountable to their creative and financial goals.

Authors, like many other professionals, often choose to keep their financial information private. Recently, though, many have begun to publish their average author salary to give those aspiring to join their ranks a real sense of the financial possibilities within the profession.

Author salary vs. book earning

An author salary is the total earnings in any given year, while book earnings are only one component of an overall author salary.

An author might still work a day job or do freelance work while they establish their reputation to supplement their income. For example, many authors with devoted followings have chosen to join networks like Patreon, where their fans can pay them directly to continue releasing their work.

Examples of platforms that pay creators include:

• Patreon
• Podia
• Buy Me A Coffee
• Ko-fi
  

Some authors write and publish books with the intention of promoting their larger brand. This is the case for many entrepreneurs that want to share a concentrated version of their business vision. The interest generated by the book might translate to increased sales of a product, traffic on their website or participation in personalized coaching.

Take for example, Brianna R. in the video below, who used the Self-Publishing School program to write and launch her book, which she now makes $4,000 per month from.

Misconceptions about author salary

It’s important to get clear on the common misconceptions surrounding an author salary, so that you have a realistic vision as you begin your own writing career.

• Publishing a book is usually not going to bring you overnight success. It takes a solid book marketing plan!
  
• Writing a book will not make you rich in most cases. Most authors find their financial success from writing multiple books, or using a book to grow their business.
  
• Writing and publishing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Writing is hard – ask any writer! Publishing takes dedication. Publishing a book doesn't mean instant fame and wealth.
  
• Many authors find success by leveraging their book to create a business. The majority of authors with a high author salary are those that launch a business from their book, or write multiple books.
  
• Passion for writing and sharing your message should drive your ambition. When you're passionate about your book's message, your passion will fuel you through the discouraging and difficult times during your author career.

Now that you understand what an author salary is, and have a slightly more realistic view of what it takes to earn a high author salary, let's answer the question you're here for: How much does an author make!?

How much does an author make?

When many of us think of an author, we think of social prestige and influence. And while making a living out of writing in itself is possible, it takes a specific recipe for success.

The reality is that not everyone can just publish a book and get instant financial success. Of course this can happen, but it's not common.

But now more than ever, there is an increasing number of authors who make a full-time income from their writing career.

Writers live in a time where the opportunity to earn from their creative passions is in abundance.

Today's digital author has the potential to make a full-time living off of their published books, but it takes a specific recipe for success. But an author salary can be extremely varied. An author can achieve:

• Extremely high financial success. Sure, there are some famous writers who have achieved great financial success, like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, who are both examples of authors that have sold millions of books, and have had their literary work adapted into major motion pictures.

• High financial success. There are many modern authors who can live luxuriously from their book earnings. However, these authors rarely make their income from one book alone.

• Medium financial success. There are many authors in the middle of the spectrum, especially with the rise of self-publishing and indie publishing. They are those who have written books, and are making livable earnings from their book royalties.

• Low financial success. Unfortunately, there are many brilliant authors who struggle to make money from their writing, and have to pursue other jobs just to make ends meet. To reference a well-known author, consider H.P. Lovecraft, who never saw financial success while he was alive.

It takes dedication, grit, and a lot of hard work to achieve a high author salary. But don’t let that discourage you from writing a book or starting your author career.

In today’s publishing industry, writers can become published authors a lot more easily than they could in the past. Historically, traditional publishing dominated the book industry, and authors had to be accepted by a traditional publishing company in order for their book to be published.

The issue with that is the traditional publishing method has always been very competitive, which means many brilliant writers have been turned away.

What is an average author salary?

The average salary of an author (as of 2023) is $78,368. This does not account for all authors, though since many “write part-time” or make much of their income through other means.

To account for this gap, the Authors Guild conducted a massive survey to get detailed financial information from more than 5,000 authors. Their research found a $6,080 median for all writers, while full-time writers have a $20,300 median. The survey speaks to the wide disparities that exist in the author salary range.

Publishing ends up being a “winner-takes-all” market – a couple of authors at the top make the vast majority of the earnings.

This fact shouldn’t discourage authors from continuing to publish their work. Being aware of the challenges and competition within the field is further motivation to reach for excellence.

Factors that affect an author salary

As a baseline rule: more book sales translate to a higher author salary. It is never that easy, though, and a multitude of other factors come into play.

For instance, book earnings may include an advance (typically from a traditional publisher) and book royalties.

An advance is the amount of money that a publisher pays an author for the promise of a book, and usually comes with half upfront and the remainder upon completion. Book advances are typically from a traditional publishing house, once your book is under contract. In self-publishing, there are not any advances given since you are the publisher.

Book royalties are the percentage of each sale that the author gets paid. These rates vary significantly depending on a variety of factors, including: self-published or traditionally published; physical copies or eBook; and where the book is sold.

Traditional royalty rates are typically significantly lower than self-publishing rates, which means authors can earn more money per book sold with self-publishing.

Amazon, for instance, offers a 30% or 70% royalty rate for eBook authors. This means that an author will earn 70% of the total list price of their book when it is sold on Amazon's platform.

For a closer look at the differences in royalty rates depending on publishing method, check out our Book Royalties Calculator:

Some genres have better financial results for authors, especially those choosing to self-publish. Writers of fantasy/sci-fi and romance novels are often able to superceed the traditional publishing gatekeepers to find massive success with the devoted audiences of these genres.

Financial guidance and business building books from recognized figures in their fields also tend to find their way into the hands of readers hungry for useful advice.

Common factors that affect author salary:

• Means of publishing. Is the author pursuing traditional publishing, self-publishing, or independent publishing?Self-publishing is known to have higher royalty rates, meaning an author gets more money from each book sold.
  
• Type and genre of book. Is the author publishing a fantasy fiction book with a dedicated reader audience, a nonfiction book, or a children's book?Each type and genre matters because the larger the audience is, the greater earning potential.
  
• Social following. Does the author have a large established social following, or is the author still relatively unknown?If you already have a social following and email list of fans, it may be easier for you to boost your author salary than someone just starting out.
  
• Purpose of the book. Is the author writing a series of books within the same genre, or is the author an entrepreneur looking to write one book to increase business growth?
  
• Other income avenues. Is the author salary only considering income from writing, or does the author have a full-time career outside of writing books?This will affect an author's income dramatically.

So we've talked about the average salary of an author, but let's take a look at some actual examples of author salary.

How much do authors make?: A list of author salaries

To give you some real life examples of author salary, and how much of a variance there is, we've compiled a detailed list of salaries from authors.

We aggregated this author salary list to cover a wide range of income possibilities, from well-known authors to those still making a name for themselves.

Before we dive in to these examples, it’s important to note that this is a very small representation of author salary examples. These authors are only one side of the equation, and do not represent the thousands of other authors who do not make this author salary list.

However, we include examples of real authors here, because many of the author salary reports that exist are simply gathered by anonymous surveys.This author salary report is used to show a snapshot of the wide spectrum in income levels amongst writers and authors.

Highest income authors

We’ll start with authors with the highest author salary. These authors have a long track record of excellence, with their books often adapted into films or TV shows.

James Patterson: $89 million (2023)

James Patterson is a popular thriller writer who topped the Forbes Highest-Paid Authors list, largely from the earnings of The President is Missing – co-published with former President Bill Clinton. He earned $89 million in 2023.

JK Rowling: $31.9 million (2023)

JK Rowling is the woman behind Harry Potter, the best-selling children’s series of all time. She earned a whopping $95 million in 2017, and a cool $31.9 million in 2023.

Nora Roberts: $30+ million (2023)

Nora Roberts is a romance novelist who earned over $30 million in 2023.

Jeff Kinney: $23 million (2023)

Jeff Kinney wrote The Diary of a Wimpy Kid and earned $23 million in 2023.

John Grisham: $21 million (2023)

John Grisham is a popular legal drama writer, best-known for books like The Firm, who earned $21 million in 2023.

Stephen King: $17 million (2023)

Stephen King is the ‘King of Horror’ due to his many popular scary novels over a decades-long career. He earned $17 million in 2023.

Rick Riordan: $10.5 million (2023)

Rick Riordan wrote the Percy Jackson series and earned $10.5 million in 2023.

Dan Brown: $10+ million (2023)

Dan Brown wrote The Da Vinci Code and earned over $10 million in 2023.

Danielle Steel: $10 million (2023)

Danielle Steel is a romance novelist and bestselling author. She earned $10 million in 2023.

Niche author salary

Fantasy/sci-fi and romance novelists have managed to carve a successful niche of the publishing world, often by publishing their works directly onto Amazon and other marketplaces. We’ll cover a few of these examples below.

Amanda Hocking

Amanda Hocking is a fantasy novelist who made her name in the self-publishing world. Her success drew the attention of a major publisher who gave her a $2 million dollar advance for four novels and an additional $750,000 for republishing rights to three books in her back catalog.

Bella Andre

Bella Andre is a self-published romance novelist, best known for her The Sullivans series, who made more than $116,246 dollars in the first quarter of 2011 according to a Washington Post article.

Hugh Howey

Hugh Howey is a self-published fantasy novelist, best known for his Wool series, who has generated more than a million dollars of income from his novels according to a 2014 Bloomberg article.

Joe Konrath

Joe Konrath is a self-published author thriller novelist, best known for his What Happened to Lori series, who earned $78,231 in six weeks after publishing a novel in 2011 according to a Washington Post article.

Jim C. Hines

Jim C. Hines is a Hugo Award-winning writer who has been posting his author salary for more than a decade. He earned $13,957 dollars in 2022, mostly from his traditionally published novels.

Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley is a Hugo Award-winning author best known for The Stars are Legion and The Feminist Geek Revolution. She published occasional income reports and earned $47,096 in 2016, though only about $18,000 came from the sale of her traditionally and self-published books. The remainder came from Patreon.

Brenna Aubrey

Brenna Aubrey is a self-published romance novelist known for turning down a major publishing contract. She published a blog post stating that she earned $16,589 the month after releasing her first novel in the aftermath of the traditional publishing rejection.

Melanie Hooyenga

Melanie Hooyenga is a self-published romance novelist best known for her The Flicker Effect series. Marie Force, a major voice in romance novels, released a blog post about the experiences of indie/self-published authors, highlighting the experience of four authors, but only uses their first names. The section on “Melanie” mentions enough details to plausibly assume that she is talking about Melanie Hooyenga (year of publication, sales, self-published). The post states that Melanie made $90,000 in 2015.

Jessi Gage

Jessi Gage is a romance novelist that transitioned from traditional publishing to self-publishing to have more freedom and control over her work. She posted an income report that stated an author salary of $21,827 in 2017.

Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Nicholas Sansbury Smith was able to leave his government job to pursue writing books full-time. He writes post-apocalyptic science fiction, and was able to sell 30,000 copies of his second self-published book Orbs, which led him to traditional publishing opportunities.

Entrepreneur author salary

Another large sector of authors includes those who have used a book to build or grow a business. Entrepreneurs and bloggers are capable of using their books, often self-published, to build their brand and grow interest in their other business ventures.

Nick Loper

Nick Loper is an entrepreneur and founder of the Side Hustle Nation blog. A year after publishing his book, Buy Buttons: The Fast-Track Strategy to Make Extra Money and Start a Business in Your Spare Time, Loper posted a blog post stating that it generated a profit of $17,900.

Chandler Bolt

Chandler Bolt is an entrepreneur and founder of the Self Publishing School. He self-published a book, Published: The Proven Path from Blank Page to Published Author. He stated in a 2016 episode of the Superfast Business podcast that the business generated $1.3 million in the year after beginning the venture. Bolt has built a successful business out of helping people around the world realize their dreams of becoming published authors.

Alyssa Padgett

Alyssa Padgett is an RV life blogger that came to prominence after self-publishing her book, A Beginner's Guide to Living in an RV: Everything I Wish I Knew Before Full-Time RVing Across America. She earns about $200 dollars a day according to an interview.

Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson is a professor of psychology who wrote the self-help book 12 Rules to Life: An Antidote to Chaos (traditionally published). He earned between $600,00 to $800,000 a month from book sales, speaking engagements, Patreon, his business and other sources according to an interview.

Pat Flynn

Pat Flynn is an entrepreneur and founder of Smart Passive Income, a course in business building. His self-published manual, Will It Fly?, generated $459,341 in direct and indirect income in the three years after publication according to a report on his blog.

Michal Stawicki

Michal Stawicki is a self-published advice writer who is best known for his How To Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day series. He has been publishing his monthly income report for more than five years and earned $1,515 from his writing in April 2019.

Timothy Sykes

Timothy Sykes is a business/investment blogger who self-published An American Hedge Fund about his experience in the penny trading market. He earned between $15 million and $20 million in 2014 according to a Forbes article.

Melyssa Griffin

Melyssa Griffin is a business blogger who self-publishes books, such as A Case Study of My Most Popular Blog Posts, as part of growing her brand. She published monthly income reports and earned $283,680 in December 2016.

Sarah Titus

Sarah Titus is a financial independence blogger who became known after self-publishing How I Became Financially Free: From Homeless to Well-Off: I’ll Show You How. Book sales now make up a small part of her income since she shifted all the book’s information on her blog. She publishes income reports and earned $981,037 in 2017.

John Lee Dumas

John Lee Dumas is a podcaster who founded Entrepreneur on Fire. He self-published a greatest hits book that included highlights from the podcast. The website includes income reports for the brand as a whole. EoFire generated $2,029,744 in 2018, which does not take into account the salaries of the podcast’s employees and other related expense to run the EoFire.

Joanna Penn

Joanna Penn is an indie author that has built her company, The Creative Penn, around her self-published fiction and non-fiction books. She shares that her income is from course sales, affiliate income, professional speaking, and podcast sponsorships. Her income report from 2016 states that her total book sales income was $95,000. Joanna’s platform has only grown since then, so it’s highly likely her income increased as well.

David Kadavy

David Kadavy, a traditionally published author who turned to self-publishing, shares that he was able to sell 11,000 copies of his first self-published book. However, he explains that after all of his self-publishing costs, including marketing, he earned a humble $3,000. He stresses that his first self-published book was part of a larger scheme in which he plans to publish more books to start generating more organic sales.

Laura DeSilverio

Laura DeSilverio is a best-selling author that has written over 21 novels. In her 2017 income report, she states that her earnings from writing was just over $30,000; however, this was a year where she did not sign any new book contracts. This income came from book royalties from her traditionally published books, book sales from her self-published books, and various other writing-related jobs, such as speaking engagements, editing, and audiobooks.

Report: How Much Does An Author Make?

Leverage your skills to build a book business

As you can see, there are many different examples of author salary, with several contributing factors. This report is meant to show a snapshot of the wide spectrum of income levels amongst writers and authors.

With that said, being an author is not a typical 9 to 5 job that promises a guaranteed paycheck every two weeks.

In order to turn a hobby into a satisfying career, authors are responsible for continuously producing books that excite/inform/engage readers.

In addition, especially for those in the self-published or indie publishing community, modern authors must view their book writing as a business, and treat it as such by acquiring the necessary skills and expertise to create a sustainable business.

Earning money from a book typically involves leveraging technical, marketing, and business development skills. If you want to write a book and generate income from your words, it’s important to create a plan for success by thinking beyond your writing skills.

If you're interested in self-publishing your book, but feel overwhelmed at the thought of navigating the process, invest in your career with a self-publishing course.

Cheryl Strayed, the best-selling author of the memoir Wild, once said in an interview that authors must live with the reality that “Well, I might make zero or I might make $5 million!”

Pursuing a career as an author is an extremely rewarding career, all financial talk aside.Not only are you able to create something profound in a tangible form of a published book, but you are also able to share your story with readers all across the world. It can open a world of opportunity for you if leveraged correctly.

With clear expectations and realistic, achievable objectives, you can pursue a career as an author, through whichever avenue makes the most sense for you.

Don’t go into writing or publishing if your sole purpose is to make millions; having that mindset could set you up for failure. Instead, go into your author career with a fiery passion for writing and sharing your message with the world. With hard work and persistence, the rest will fall into place.