2022 National Survey of Australian Authors
The 2022 National Survey of Australian Book Authors released with little fanfare, only having been read so far by a couple hundred people. It can be downloaded here. In addition, briefs with a focus on sections of the research are also available.
Conducted by Dr Paul Crosby, Professor David Throsby and Dr Jan Zwar, all of Macquarie University, it was completed in November 2022. The research was enabled by funding from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Cultural Fund of the Copyright Agency.
The research covers general statistics about demographics and the nature of the general experience of being a published author. The data also has a use in making a case for governments, creative organisations and so forth to do more to help writers such as through a basic income for creators. There is a pilot program underway in Ireland related to this and it is a topic that may be increasingly relevant depending on the interactions in the future between AI and jobs.
On this page are charts created to visualise the data from this survey, with a focus of data and findings of greater potential use to writers. These charts have been designed with colour blindness in mind.
The information on this page is of most relevance to the Australian market, but can also be more broadly useful.
While this page focuses on barriers authors face, Page 2 is focused on what types of publications were used by writers and Page 3 is focused on usage of promotional methods were used and digging deeper into selected genres.
Barriers To Inclusive Participation
One of the the most striking findings from the data concerns gender identity.
Note: For ease of visualisation, this combines the 'Please Tell Us' category with Non-binary/Gender-diverse. That category appeared to refer to individuals who are in a process of self-discovery which aligns well with a current identity that is at least not within the male/female gender binary.
This survey found Australian published authors (which includes self-publishing) to be significantly female, but there is also gender parity or close to it for Educational and Academic books.
Financial circumstances and sociology may help explain why authors are predominately female in several genres.
For Children's Writing, it is has been clearly established to be related to women continuing to be associated with childcare of babies and younger infants at higher levels then males and non-binary/gender-diverse individuals. Regardless of gender identity, higher engagement with infants and children is related to higher interest in writing for them.
41.6% of respondents relied on a partner's income and 20.8% on a job related to writing and 38.9% on an unrelated job.
In 2017, the Pew Research Center found that men faced significantly higher pressure to be a 'breadwinner,' that is, to earn income instead of relying on a partner's income. Dr. Brownyn Harman, senior lecturer in psychology at Edith Cowan University, has found the same social expectations in the Australian context.
When it comes to Educational and Academic books, these are by-and-large written by educators and academics who have written their books as part of or in addition to ongoing jobs (or following on from past jobs) in education and academic sectors.
When it comes to Poetry, which is not far off from gender parity, poems are much shorter than books or novellas. It is easier to fit in poetry regardless of what else you do.
Creative Non-Fiction can overlap with literary journalism, memoirs, travel writing and food writing. It is probable that when it comes to Creative Non-Fiction, there is a higher population of writers who are in part drawing upon other professional careers and so face less financial constraints for their writing.
So, the data regarding gender identification may be showing evidence of writers experiencing barriers in becoming published due to financial pressures and expectations of generating income. These barriers may lead to delays in being a published author or result in a failure to transition from being a hobbyist to being a professional, or ceasing to continue to be a professional writer at some point.
Although the data may be showing the impact on male writers, it is logical that these barriers also apply to writers in general. It may be that as males are more likely to feel the weight of social expectation to earn their own money instead of relying on a partner's income, it may be that these pressures have a greater impact on male writers.
By looking at the total average income from writing, we see that the average falls very short of financial security. As an average, this means there would be respondents who made less and those who made more, enough to truly make a full-time living from it.
It is hardest of all to try to make a living as a poet, whereas Educational Books, Children's Books and 'genre' fiction have the best chance of enabling a writer to make a living from their creative output alone.
This information about income provides further support for the idea that writers are facing financial barriers to being published and making it as an author and/or remaining as an author.
Overall, 38% of authors stated that they were constrained by a need to generate income through other work.
Financial pressures were only indicated as being considerably lower for Academic Writing. One hypothesis is that this could reflect differences in renumeration and working conditions between educational and academic writers.
A second possible factor is the relationship between writing and other jobs. It may be that educational writing is more likely to be done in addition to being an educator, or after retiring from another job. It may be that Academic writing is more likely to be done as part of the work of an academic role.
Educational writers were a little more likely than academic writers to have separate creative interests, but not to a level that would explain the difference.
Why do barriers to inclusion matter?
They matter because there are potentially works of significant interest that are going unwritten as a result. From the perspective of governments, this is at a cost not only to culture, but to revenue, because of a loss of potential cultural products and the associated merchandise and other products. There is a loss of soft power. It also matters because writing is also a platform for society to represent itself and reflect upon itself and if groups are comparatively excluded, this reduces quality of social discourse.
There is also a second issue with inclusive representation which extends from the first.
In terms of age distribution, close to half of published authors according to this survey are in their 50s and 60s. Almost none were in their 20s, one of the other striking findings of this survey and other such surveys.
Dr Paul Crosby, Professor David Throsby and Dr Jan Zwar noted that compared to data from some other surveys as well as Australian Bureau of Statistics data from 2016, the sample of this survey was broadly representative, although the data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggests there might be a higher (but not much higher) proportion of younger authors and a 2017 survey suggests this survey have somewhat overrpresented women.
Yet if this data is even approximately accurate, it raises the question why there are so few published (and self-published) authors in their 20s in particular and to a lesser extent the 30s.
The data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, drawn from the 2021 Australian Census, confirms that in terms of the general population, there isn't the stark difference that there is when looking at the age distribution of published authors.
Is it that there are just far less people in their 20s interested in making it as a writer? It seems far likelier that this is instead further evidence of writers facing barriers in making it as a professional writer. Older writers are more likely to have had more time to develop their writing skills and confidence. They have more time to write even with work demands. They are also more likely to be able to draw on accumulated savings or other income sources to support themselves.
There is also a third issue with inclusive representation.
There are definitely qualified non-binary/gender-diverse writers for Educational Books – the Academic Book category is evidence of this – yet non-binary/gender-diverse writers were not directly represented there, or in Children's Books.
Respondents only selected 'Prefer Not To Say' at non-zero levels for three options: Educational Books, Children's Books and Literary Fiction. This leads to a hypothesis that 'Prefer Not To Say' was selected by non-binary/gender-diverse writers who did not feel comfortable being public about their gender identity.
In the next part, we explore this hypothesis further and otherwise look at the formats used by Australian writers and the main sources where authors received writing-related income.
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Fair Dealing/Fair Use Statement: Care has been taken to respect all appropriate copyright. As ideas are not copyrighted, but only the original expression through words and images, it is fine to generate new charts based on raw data, which is in itself not copyrightable.
This survey was released free-of-charge to the public. There is no negative impact to the original work (if anything, there may be increased interest in the original publication). All statements herein count as part of 'criticism or review'. Ideas of the survey are referred to, but without direct quotation and in most cases from a different perspective. This usage is non-commercial.