The landscape of authorship in the 21st Century is undergoing a seismic shift. Thousands of independent creators are rebuilding the modern literary world. A handful of tradpub gatekeepers no longer have the same hold on literature as in days gone by.
Across the various studies we use to recommend book promotion strategies, which analyzed approximately 3,800 unique authors and tens of thousands of books, a clear and surprising picture of the modern author has emerged.
Read below to see what the data tells us about the people writing the books you read today.
If you imagine a self-published author as a hobbyist, the data suggests you should think again. The modern author is overwhelmingly professional, persistent, and academic.
A Woman-Centered Market
Across almost all publishing routes, women outnumber men. In one large-scale survey of over 800 writers, 77.8% were female.
Furthermore, research into the indie market found a reverse gender gap, where cisgender women typically earned 41% more than their male counterparts.
The Academic Author
Authors are among the most educated demographics. One study found that 80% of independent authors hold a graduate or post-graduate degree.
Self-published authors are also more likely to have a parent with a degree than they are to have one themselves, suggesting a strong link between a literary upbringing and the confidence to publish.
The Age Gap: Digital Natives vs. The TradPub Average
There is a distinct age divide between authors who publish through traditional publishing houses and those who go independent.
Indie Authors Are Younger
Writers who choose to self-publish are significantly more likely to be aged 44 and under. Qualitative studies on platforms like BookTok specifically found a concentration of authors in their 20s and 30s, likely due to higher levels of digital literacy and comfort with social media marketing.
TradPub Authors Skew Older
In contrast, the average age of a traditionally published author sits significantly higher. For example, the Society of Authors, UK-based trade union, reported an average membership age of 59.
[ Read an overview of the research we use ]
Diversity: Successes But Systematic Barriers
One of the core promises of the digital revolution was the democratization of storytelling, allowing for vastly more diversity of stories types and the authors who write them.
However, while the studies underpinning Lumin8’s strategies show significant progress in some areas, other access remains stubbornly stagnant.
LGBTQIA+ and Disability Representation
Many marginalized voices have found a safe haven in the indie book market.
LGBTQIA+ authors account for a higher percentage of the indie population than the general population and, in some cases, earn nearly 20% more than straight authors.
Similarly, representation for disabled authors is higher than population averages.
The Ethnic Diversity Challenge
Despite the lack of tradpub gatekeepers in the indie book sphere, the studies found that ethnic diversity remains low across all publishing models. In fact, non-white diversity is higher in the Big Five traditional houses.
In a snapshot of Amazon Kindle Bestsellers, only 4% of self-published authors were from ethnic backgrounds other than white, compared to 9% in the Big Five traditional houses (1).
Researchers suggest that although tradpub houses tend to have proactive inclusivity projects, the indie market lacks a coordinated effort to bring in underrepresented groups.
An intriguing trend identified in the research on independent publishing is the use of hidden characteristics.
About 14% of independent authors on bestseller lists hide their gender or ethnic background by using avatars, illustrations, or visual pen names rather than photos of themselves.
Hiding is common in the tradpub world when authors choose to write in multiple genres (eg, Catherine Webb, Kate Griffin, and Claire North) to match reader expectations for specific genres (like Romance) or to bypass perceived biases.
Researchers speculate that genre-switching pen names probably also happens in the indie world.
At Lumin8, we wonder if hiding is also a technique that marginalized authors use to prevent online harassment.
[ Read more about the indie genres in our research ]
Summarize It For Me
Today’s authors are more than just writers. They are entrepreneurial micro-firms. They are younger, more diverse in their identities, and more academically qualified than ever before, proving that the digital age hasn’t just changed how we publish, but who gets to be an author.
Ready to move past guesswork in marketing your indie book? View our services and contact us today.
(1) The Big Five are Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster.
Sources: Research data aggregated from CREATe/ALLi global surveys, Greenland digital author survey, Amazon Kindle market analysis snapshot, and foundational work by Baverstock and Steinitz (2013). Full methodology available upon request.
Featured image by Evy Prentice on Unsplash.