The European Writers’ Council based in Brussels produced a report, in 2020, surveying effects of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. For that report, 33 professional organizations in 24 countries provided input for the council’s analysis.
The council is an umbrella advocacy organization that gathers many nationally-based writers’ associations, much as does the Federation of European Publishers for associations of presses and the European and International Booksellers Federation for retailers. The council represents, all told, as many as 158,000 professional writers and translators from 46 organizations and 31 countries.
And as we near this year’s end, the council has produced a follow-up survey to create The Winter of Our Discontent: The Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Writers and Translators in the European Book Sector, 2020 to 2022 . If anything, its evaluation of the situation for writers at the end of 2021 is made all the more poignant because reports of the coronavirus’ new variant have
Some of the top-line conclusions of the study:
- 77 percent of all authors represented in the survey’s purview were challenged by canceled live events
- Cancellation fees were not paid in 90 percent of those cases
- 15 to 25 percent of average income is reported to have been lost by those working part-time as writers and translators
- 30 to 40 percent of average income is reported to have been lost by those working full-time as writers and translators
- Only half of 20 monitored countries offered state compensation or aid packages
- Publishers postponed titles for between eight and 18 months
- Royalty advances decreased
- The use of educational books and text material for schools and universities for remote learning increased but frequently with license extensions or fee relief, indicating that royalties may have been reduced or lost
- 70 percent of collective management organizations report that they expect a negative long-term impact on collective licensing income for authors
- In some countries, ebook and audiobook piracy has been reported to have increased, perhaps tripled
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