Responding to a survey that found the median author income had dropped to £10,500, Publishers Association said the figures were ‘unrecognisable’

The Society of Authors has issued a sharply worded challenge to the UK’s biggest publishers after the chief executive of the Publishers Association questioned new figures revealing the plummeting incomes of writers, describing them as “unrecognisable”.

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A survey of more than 5,500 professional writers for the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) revealed earlier this week that median earnings for professional authors had dropped by 42% since 2005 below £10,500 a year, with the average full-time writer earning just £5.73 an hour, well below the UK minimum wage for those over 25. The number of professional authors, defined as those who spend more than half their working hours writing, also fell, from 40% of all published authors in 2005 to 13.7% in 2018.

Authors laid the blame for the decline at the feet of publishers, with the Society of Authors chief executive Nicola Solomon estimating that authors were paid just 3% of publishers’ turnover in 2016, based on their profits. “What concerns us is that during the same period that we see authors’ earnings plummet, the large publishers are seeing their sales rocket,” she said on Tuesday.

But the Publishers Association’s chief executive, Stephen Lotinga, argued against blaming the trade body’s members, telling the Bookseller: “These figures will be unrecognisable to the majority of publishers as they just do not reflect the investments they are making in creative talent.”

“If we are to have a genuinely constructive conversation about this issue, then we need a much sounder evidence base,” said Lotinga. “Publishers value authors enormously and their entire businesses are dependent on supporting them.”

In an open letter to Lotinga, published on Friday, Solomon said that the decline in earnings revealed in the ALCS research echoed similar findings from surveys around the world. Along with ALCS chief executive Owen Atkinson, she called on publishers to state in their accounts what they pay to authors, illustrators and translators in advances, royalties and secondary income.

“There is clear evidence that author earnings are in serious decline. Meanwhile the profit margins of the main corporate publishers are increasing, with average profits estimated to be around 13%. Based on the PA’s own 2016 figures, we estimated that the big five publishers’ shareholders received up to three times the amount paid to authors. This estimate has never been seriously challenged,” wrote Solomon and Atkinson. “These figures are not sustainable. Publishers, of course, have a duty to make a profit for shareholders. But unless authors receive proper returns, the supply of quality work will inevitably diminish as will the pool of authors.”

She invited the Publishers Association to work with the society “to look at the causes of declining incomes for authors, and to ensure that profits are fairly shared along the value chain”, because “paying fairly and encouraging underrepresented voices to consider writing might just widen our reader bases enough to give everyone a bigger share of the pie”.

The Publishers Association told the Guardian it was considering a response.