Samizdat drives the figure – Newspaper Kommersant No. 38 (7483) dated 03/04/2023

Independent writers (self-publishing their works on samizdat platforms on the Internet) earn an average of 50-70 thousand rubles. per month, according to a survey conducted by Litnet. LitRes notes that top authors earn more than 1 million rubles. per month. This segment of the market is now favored by the situation: in the face of the loss of foreign licenses, publishing houses are ready to look for new authors on samizdat sites, while at the same time leaving writers with part of the rights to independent online publications.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the study of the literary platform “Litnet” on the earnings and demographics of independent writers (they do not cooperate with publishing houses and publish their works on their own). It follows that 68% of independent authors in general receive a monthly income from what they publish, and 32% do not earn, as they post books for free. The median income of independent authors is 50–70 thousand rubles. per month, 20% of respondents answered that they earn more than 100 thousand rubles from writing. Such data follows from a survey of 1.2 thousand authors, which took place from January 26 to February 25, 2023.

Every third author (35%) has a full-time job, 30% of respondents devote all their time to creativity. Part-time employment (20%), education (10%) and pension (4%) are third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in terms of popularity among answers about the nature of employment.

Respondents came to the literary sphere from different areas. The educational sector is leading by a small margin in the survey – it was noted by 14% of respondents. 7% of respondents initially worked or are working in IT. 72% of respondents have higher education.

The number of registered users of “LitRes: Samizdat” last year increased by 57%, and the number of new publications – by 20%, says Sergey Anuryev, general director of the “LitRes” group of companies. At the end of 2022, the royalties of independent authors who are included in the top 50 digital LitRes, on average, can be from 200 thousand rubles per month, and the top ones earn more than 1 million rubles. a month, he says.

Self-publishing is growing faster than the digital book market as a whole. As Kommersant wrote on February 27the growth of the samizdat literature market in Russia at the end of 2022 slowed down to 20% (its capacity is estimated at 3.2 billion rubles), and the market of electronic and audio books (11 billion rubles) showed no growth at all.

For publishers, self-publishing platforms are a promising resource for replenishing content, according to market participants. After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, many international publishing houses refused to supply novelties to Russia, including Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, John Wiley & Sons and others. the more subscribers and downloads, the more chances to find a potential bestseller, although independent, especially online, and traditional book publishing diverge in many respects,” says the editor-in-chief of Alpina. Prose” Tatyana Solovieva.

“We are following the development of samizdat platforms. Among the authors who started in samizdat, and then began to publish with us, are Asya Lavrinovich, Max Glebov, Alexei Salnikov, ”Oleg Novikov, co-owner of Eksmo-AST, told Kommersant.

Competition between platforms and publishers, as a rule, does not arise. “It’s more of a partnership: usually the authors do not decide to give all the rights to the publisher at once, rather they share them. Part of the rights is to publish a printed book, while the electronic version is left for management,” says the owner of Litnet, Boris Makarenkov. “Whether an author stops publishing in samizdat when he comes to us is decided individually, but we ourselves are not interested in separating the author from his audience,” admits Oleg Novikov.

Valeria Lebedeva