Publishing Shifts Post-2020
Isaac Young's viral thread dissecting post-2020 publishing shifts hit 442 likes and 18k views, highlighting how subscription revenue now trumps sales amid AI slop and reader shrinkage. Key insights: prioritize free posts for fans, budget at least 2M for editing/printing, and treat writing as a side gig. The thread warns against PR scams while praising community benefits for sharing industry tricks.
The subscription model isn't new; authors like Alexander Pope used it to fund translations of *The Iliad* in the 1720s by pre-selling copies to subscribers. Today's version, however, offers a more predictable revenue stream compared to the traditional advance system. For context, debut author advances in traditional publishing typically range from $50,000 to $70,000, and data from the Penguin Random House antitrust trial revealed fewer than 1% of 3.2 million titles sold more than 5,000 copies—the threshold where many authors might start to see royalties beyond their initial payment. On platforms like Substack, the top 10 authors collectively earn over $40 million a year, with at least five individual newsletters generating over $1 million annually. Substack takes a 10% commission, a stark contrast to the economics of traditional publishing where authors might only see 10-15% royalties on print books. On Patreon, creators can earn between $315 and $1,575 monthly on average, though top earners reach significantly higher figures. The "reader shrinkage" is a documented trend, despite a temporary 21% spike in reading time in the latter half of 2020 during the pandemic. Gallup data from 2021 shows Americans read an average of 12.6 books per year, down from 15.6 in 2016. More recent studies confirm the decline, with the percentage of Americans reading for pleasure daily dropping from 28% in 2004 to just 16% in 2023. The rise of AI-generated "slop" presents a significant challenge to quality and trust in the market. These AI systems are trained on vast datasets, which can lead to unintentional copyright infringement and the production of formulaic, homogenized content. This has led to real-world consequences, such as the appearance of dangerously inaccurate AI-generated foraging guides on Amazon. The viral thread's mention of a "2M" budget for editing and printing is a dramatic outlier. Realistic costs for professional self-publishing typically range from $2,000 to $4,000, covering essential services like editing, cover design, and formatting. Even comprehensive self-publishing efforts, including marketing, rarely exceed the low tens of thousands, making the multi-million dollar figure highly unrealistic for a standard book project.
