Canelo / Arts Council England

Canelo / Arts Council England | 

19

   

Literature in the 21st Century: Understanding Models of Support for Literary Fiction

individually, the year-on-year evidence suggests that such breakout hits 

are selling fewer copies overall and making less money (in print) than 

they would have done in previous years. 

All of this has two knock-on effects, both relevant and worrying for 

those concerned about how writers might support themselves. Firstly, 

the number of bookshops is shrinking. In 2005 there were still 1,535 

independent bookshops in the UK, although that figure is in itself lower 

than during the mid-nineties

4

. By 2014 that number was down to 987. 

By 2017 it was fewer than 900, although there is evidence that new 

ones have started opening (e.g. Libreria, from former Downing Street 

advisor Rohan Silva, Lutyens & Rubinstein from a literary agency, and 

the continued expansion of Foyles)

5

. Over the same period, chains 

such as Ottakar’s were absorbed into Waterstones, and Borders 

went bust. While not as bad as the situation in Japan, which has seen 

more than half its bookshops close in the past 20 years, there are still 

fewer outlets for selling books. A recent report from the Booksellers 

Association in association with the Centre for Economics and Business 

Research, Bookselling Britain, makes the opportunities and challenges 

clear.

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 It highlights how bookselling is still a major force, underpinning 

46,000 UK jobs (around half directly, the rest in supply-chain), adding 

double the gross value added (GVA) compared with the retail average, 

and making a serious contribution to GDP. In addition, it makes clear 

the value of bookshops to high streets and cultural life (Waterstones 

alone has put on 5,000 events in 2017 to date). But it also highlights a 

daunting range of challenges: growth was negative in the years 2010 

to 2014, averaging – 2.8% per year. Amazon and online retail, business 

rates and taxation more widely, and the increasing costs of maintaining 

bricks and mortar retail property, were all cited as major issues. 

Secondly, this translates into a squeeze on author incomes. Here, the 

perception that the market was split between winners and losers was 

borne out. 2015 Nielsen BookScan data suggests that the top 1% of 

authors accounted for 32.8% of all sales and within this, the top 0.1% 

accounted for 13% of total sales. Meanwhile the top 5% accounted 

for 42.3% and the top 10% accounted for 57% of all sales. Indeed, 

there is evidence the market is growing more unequal.

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 The amount 

earned by the top 0.1% increased by 21% against 2014. The top three 

authors – David Walliams, Julia Donaldson and J.K. Rowling – were all 

(primarily) children’s writers. Yet as we have seen, even at the top of 

this distribution things can be challenging, let alone further down the 

4  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10654506/Decline-of-the-independent-bookshop-as-UK-figures-fall-be-

low-1000-for-first-time.html 

5

   http://www.thebookseller.com/news/indies-fear-impact-new-increased-overheads-323811 

6

   https://cebr.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Bookselling-Britain-report.pdf 

7

   https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk 

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