Writing is in danger of becoming an elitist profession, with many authors being subsidised by their partners or a second job in order to stay afloat, according to new statistics.

The full findings from the annual Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society report into author earnings paint a more nuanced picture than the headline results from last summer, which revealed that median earnings for professional writers had fallen to less than £10,500 a year. While the average professional writer earns £10,000 a year, the mean earnings for a writer’s household were more than £81,000 a year, and median household earnings were at £50,000 per annum. “Most writers supplement their income from other sources, such as a second job or household earnings contributed by a partner”, according to the report, which analysed answers from more than 5,500 professional writers.

That household income figures for writers are “conspicuously” higher than those earned from writing alone “highlight the extent to which additional work is required in households to subsidise authors’ incomes”, said the Society of Authors, which warned that this “may well be a factor in the lack of diversity among professional writers, as people from less privileged backgrounds who want to write are less likely to have additional sources of household income”.

Researchers from the UK Copyright and Creative Economy Centre at the University of Glasgow write: “It is a striking result that, as households, writers are doing rather well.” Like the Society of Authors, they speculate that the need to subsidise income would contribute to a lack of diversity, pointing to the “well-known … demographic data (confirmed by our survey) that writers are mostly white (94%) and live in the south-east”. They also ask: “Is writing becoming more elitist as a profession?”

In 2018, the median writing income for a writer was £10,000, with non-writing sources of earnings bringing individual incomes up to £27,000. Median household income was £50,000. This contrasts to 2006, when writing income was £12,330, individual income was £25,337 and median household income was £37,000.

Researchers say that having non-writing sources of household income has become increasingly important. Almost 70% of all respondents needed to earn money from sources other than writing, according to the report, which also identified a significant gender pay gap, with female writers earning 74.9% of the income received by male writers.

“There is a danger of writing becoming an elitist profession which excludes new and diverse voices,” said Society of Authors chief executive Nicola Solomon. “This report should act as a wake-up call for the industry.”

Kit de Waal, who edited a new anthology of working-class voices called Common People, called the findings problematic. “It indicates that to survive as a writer, there’s got to be money coming in from somewhere else, not just writing. You need a partner or another job,” she said. “It puts a limit on the pool of people who can consider writing as a profession. And some people will look at that figure of £10,000 and say, ‘No matter how much I have to say, I can’t do this.’ It’s saying to people, ‘You’ve got to do this for the love of it.’ For many working-class people, that isn’t often an option.”

While working on Common People – which features contributions from writers including former children’s laureate Malorie Blackman as well as lesser-known names – De Waal was told by someone: “If these writers were any good, they would already be published.”

Bestselling memoirist Cathy Rentzenbrink, who contributed to Common People, agreed that readers are “definitely missing out on voices”. “When I was a kid and dreaming of being a writer, something I never thought of being open to someone like me, I never would have known the reality would feel so precarious,” she said. “Writing income is very uncertain. You have no idea when writing if anyone will buy the book, and it’s very rocky when it comes to pensions. It’s a really accepted idea in our culture that writers are wealthy – they’re not, and not from writing.”