Writing on the breadline

At the end of last month, authors reading their six-monthly royalty statements were dismayed to find that they had earned as little as 10 pence per copy. The pitiful return was on hardbacks that had been sold through burgeoning book clubs and high street outlets like The Book People, a firm that specialises in selling books in industrial quantities to people in large workplaces. These traders represent a growing chunk of the book market, and their growth is devastating for many writers.

"About 95 per cent of authors are worse off now than they were five years ago," asserts Mark Le Fanu, general secretary of the Society of Authors. "There are a lot more people applying for hardship payments," confirms Royal Literary Fund secretary Eileen Gunn. "I know one author whose royalty income has been halved from £34,000 a year to £16,000," says children's writer Tony Bradman.

The chief villains, according to authors and their friends, are traditional book clubs like BCA, owned by the gigantic German conglomerate Bertelsmann, and direct sales companies like The Book People, which buys books at 80 per cent discount and sells at roughly half price. Founded in 1988 by Ted Smart and Seni Glaister, TBP is on a roll. Its last accounts showed profits of £1.5 million on turnover of £60 million - its fifth consecutive year of growth.

Authors usually receive between 10 and 20 per cent of the cover price of their books; royalties from book clubs and direct sellers are a fraction of whatever the club pays the publisher. A BCA edition of a £20 hardback will earn the author 40p instead of £2.

Publishers argue that these deals spread books to readers who will never enter Waterstone's or WH Smith. Rubbish, say authors. Those who buy a book club edition buy it because it is cheap, not because they are Bordersphobic. "I do not see how, if someone buys a book and I only get 40p from it, I am better off than if they bought the book in a bookshop," grumbles the award-laden children's writer, Philip Pullman.

Historian Antony Beevor has banned his publisher Penguin from short-selling his latest book. "I agreed, with a certain amount of scepticism, that they could sell rights to Stalingrad, but I was appalled to see that the book club shifted 35,000 copies. I really believe that those who bought the book club edition would certainly have bought, if not the hardback, then the paperback. On average I was getting less than 30p a copy."

But not every author has Beevor's bargaining power, and many are forced to accept a book club deal on being told that it could make the difference between their book being published, or not.

Romantic novelist Beryl Kingston refused to accept a book club deal on her last title, Suki, because it would have earned her just £1,000 from 20,000 copies. She promptly found herself without a publisher, despite past sales of more than a million.

In the past two years Kington's annual income of £85,000 has vanished to nothing. Gone are dreams of retirement in Tuscany; instead, she and her husband Roy get by on state pensions and the top-rate £6,000 a year that she receives for UK library borrowings - proof of her continuing popularity.

"They simply assumed that I would give in," she says bitterly. "But I didn't because it was simply wrong. You should not make only £1,000 on 20,000 copies of a book that has taken three years to write and which shows you at the top of your form."