[bawolff]

> disproportionate BookTok audience whose sales are driven this way are often written by pretty, white, well-off women.

Don't you have to be fairly well off to invest the time to write a book? Its a pretty big time investment with basically no garuntees. I imagine its pretty rare for poor people who work all day to be successful writers.

Not to mention a probably strong correlation in higher education in an area that is not all that useful for getting a job,probably further tips the scale to well off people.

Basically what i'm wondering, is it really disporportionate relative to the industry at large.

[2143]

All of this is applicable to where I'm from (global south); don't know how it is in western countries.

> Don't you have to be fairly well off to invest the time to write a book?

No. I'm aware of plenty of critically acclaimed writers who are not particularly rich. (Although there are plenty of people who got rich because of the books).

I guess most of them have/had other jobs, like teaching at a university for example. And some — especially people who were university teachers — tend to continue on that job.

> Not to mention a probably strong correlation in higher education in an area that is not all that useful for getting a job

A college degree in things like literature, political science, economics, and general science subjects (physics, chemistry, math, biology etc) tend to be inexpensive here, as compared to a degree in engineering or medical science.

[bawolff]

> I guess most of them have/had other jobs, like teaching at a university for example. And some — especially people who were university teachers — tend to continue on that job.

University prof might not be a wealthy job, but class wise it is usually considered pretty high class. We're not exactly talking about the people putting 9-5 in doing manual labour at a construction site.

> A college degree in things like literature, political science, economics, and general science subjects (physics, chemistry, math, biology etc) tend to be inexpensive here, as compared to a degree in engineering or medical science.

Maybe, but its still a large investment for questionable financial gain. The opportunity cost is high. The pay-off (ignoring things like love of the subject and instrinsic value) is pretty low. Its a hard thing to justify if you're not at least upper-middle class.

[2143]

> University prof might not be a wealthy job, but class wise it is usually considered pretty high class. We're not exactly talking about the people putting 9-5 in doing manual labour at a construction site.

Ah, yes. Agreed.

> Maybe, but its still a large investment for questionable financial gain.

No no, I don't think you realize how cheap education can be where I'm from. Getting admitted is an entirely different matter. And don't ask me how, but here there's an inverse correlation between how good a university is and how expensive it is. Like, here the best universities seem to be run by the government and are therefore much cheaper than private universities. Which is why it is also very hard to get into those govt run universities.

Also — I think this is a cultural thing — generally people here tend to want go to college, even if ultimately there is little correlation between what they study and what they end up doing (atleast, for non-engineering non-medical courses).

And, college degree is kind of expected for any job here. I don't know if that's what's caused the cultural default of going to college, or vice versa.

So yes, lots of complex, and sometimes contradicting dynamics at play.

There are inefficiencies with such an attitude, but I guess it is what it is.

(And, I'm not an expert in any of what I said above, so take all of that with a pinch of salt.)

[asyx]

I think the US has a very weird relationship with education. Here in Germany, you pay a small fee to the university, then an even smaller fee for something else and then like 150€ or so for public transport through the whole state. I think I paid something like 250 or 300€ a semester (graduated in 2016 in the state of North Rhine Westphalia).

Whether or not a degree provides financial success later in life is just not something people care about. You only have to pay back 50% of your student loans but 10k max. Even if your family is dirt poor you will be able to pay for that degree. And even if you end up as a taxi driver youll be able to pay it back (if you even have too... I think there's a certain income threshold you need to hit).

And I think statistically speaking the unemployment rate amongst higher educated people is lower on average than for others even if you look at those "unemployable" degrees.

Going for a philosophy degree or a history degree because it's what you want to do is 100% something society accepts as a valid choice.

Oh and same with private universities. Some universities have a really good reputation for one degree but as a rule of thumb: if you have your degree from a private university in Germany, people will assume Daddy bought your degree.

[Finnucane]

>Don't you have to be fairly well off to invest the time to write a book?

I can say, after 30 years in the publishing business, that the answer to that is no. Many writers are not that well off. In fact, many struggle financially. Many have 'day jobs' to pay the bills.

[vidarh]

It's true that many struggle, and as a result most writers are not full time. But first published novels skew quite old, and as I posted elsewhere the average household income in the UK at least for full time writers is well above average, so while I don't think it's high enough to say you have to be "fairly well off", it certainly helps buy you time. Doesn't necessarily buy you success, though.

[Finnucane]

>But first published novels skew quite old

Most of the writers I know started young, and not all writers are novelists. Most are not.

>and as I posted elsewhere the average household income in the UK at least for full time writers is well above average

That just means they married someone with a real job.

[vidarh]

Most you know might well have started young - many do -, but in terms of getting books published, as per the subject here, the overall numbers are quite clear.

> That just means they married someone with a real job.

Yes, that was exactly the point - to a large extent writing is subsidized by other jobs, and so there is a significant element of privilege involved.

[vidarh]

You don't have to be, but e.g. in the UK the average full time author themselves earn below minimum wage, while the average household income for a household with a full time author is far above average.

And the vast majority of writers never make it to full time.

You can also get some indication from the average age at first publication (late 30's if I remember correctly).

[vidarh]

Too late to edit, but I wanted to add hard numbers to this from [1]:

"the survey shows a drop in real terms (accounting for inflation) of 42 percent in median earnings from an equivalent of £18,013 in 2006 to £10,497 in 2018" [for those with whose primary, but not necessarily only, occupation is writer]

" It is a striking result that, as households, writers are doing rather well. Average (mean) earnings are over £81,000 per annum, typical (median) earnings £50,000 per annum." The median was lower than I remembered. (The UK disposable (post tax) median income is around 30k, which for a single earner household means around 39k gross, but will be a lower gross income for a two income household; if the writer earns the median, they'd meet the UK median disposable household income if the other person earns only 24k, so the majority of "writer households" are well above the median despite the low writer income)

"The fact that this household ‘subsidy’ is needed to make a living may contribute to the lack of diversity among writers. It is well known from demographic data (confirmed by our survey) that writers are mostly white (94%) and live in the South East. Is writing becoming more elitist as a profession?"

[1] UK Authors’ Earnings and Contracts 2018: A Survey of 50,000 Writers <https://www.create.ac.uk/blog/2019/05/02/uk-authors-earnings...> (2019)

[WalterBright]

"Harry Potter" was written by Rowling who was on welfare.

[neysofu]

You can't meaningfully rebut a statistic with a single counterexample.

[WilTimSon]

> Don't you have to be fairly well off to invest the time to write a book?

Not necessarily, although I'm sure it helps. Quite a few writers started out by writing their book in between shifts of menial labour or just while they crashed on friends' couches. It's mostly about staying motivated to work on this thing that brings you no money while knowing that you could just give up and do a regular job instead. That's where most would fail while those who have a lot of money don't ever need to even consider it.