The Royal Society of Literature has just published its report, A Room of My Own: What writers need to work today (PDF). It makes for depressing reading.
Only 5% of writers earned over £30,000 from their writing in 2018 (equivalent to the £500 per year Virginia Woolf recommended for writers).
13% of all respondents identified as being from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, but we represent only 9% of the highest earners from writing.
76% of BAME writers felt that money was a major barrier to writing in the early days.
Lack of time was also a major barrier, resulting in 25% of writers from BAME backgrounds taking on full-time employment outside of writing to earn the money mentioned above.
66% of early careers BAME writers also struggled to find information to support themselves and their careers (this is especially heartbreaking--if you know BAME writers, send them to our website at least!).
Women, disabled and working class writers also have pretty dire figures.
To quote the report: 'As the great Toni Morrison enjoined in her Nobel Prize lecture: “Make up a story… For our sake and yours …tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.” A multiplicity of individual voices matters. Literature matters.'
