Authors’ Day

What the day is

National Authors' Day is observed on November 1. It honors writers, and the usual suggestion attached to it is to contact an author whose work has mattered to you.

Origin and background

The day was proposed in 1928 by Nellie Verne Burt McPherson, a teacher and member of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in Illinois. The account is that she had written to an author whose story she admired, received a warm reply, and concluded that writers deserved organized recognition. The federation adopted the idea and it was recognized nationally the following year.

The economics of authorship remain poorly understood by most readers. Surveys of professional authors in the United States and Britain consistently find median earnings from writing well below a living wage, with income heavily concentrated among a small number of bestsellers. Most published authors hold other jobs, and the proportion able to live on writing alone has declined over recent decades.

Royalty structures explain part of it. An author typically receives a modest percentage of each sale, paid only after any advance has been earned back, and advances themselves have fallen in real terms across much of trade publishing.

What demonstrably helps individual authors is unglamorous: buying books rather than borrowing where you can afford to, reviewing them, requesting them at libraries, and telling other people about them. Word of mouth remains the strongest driver of book sales, ahead of advertising.

How to take part

• Write to an author. Most reply, most are delighted, and almost nobody does it.
• Leave a review somewhere it counts. Reviews affect visibility in ways that praise in private does not.
• Buy from an independent bookshop, or request a title at your library, which also pays the author in several countries.
• Pre-order the next book by someone you like. Pre-orders disproportionately shape publisher support.
• If you write yourself, finish something today rather than planning it.