At Written Word Media, we believe that supporting authors starts with understanding them. That’s why, for the second year in a row, we conducted a Mid-Year Author Sentiment Survey to take the pulse of the indie author community.
We wanted to know how authors are really doing halfway through the year. What’s working? What’s becoming more challenging? And what can we learn from the authors who are finding success in today’s market?
This year’s survey drew responses from 582 authors across a wide range of genres, experience levels, and income brackets. Their answers were thoughtful, candid, and sometimes surprising. The result is a snapshot of the indie publishing landscape in mid-2026—one that reveals both the challenges authors are facing and the opportunities many continue to find.
Let’s take a look at what authors told us.
If you’d rather listen than read, you can also check out the podcast episode where Ricci and Ferol break down the results, discuss the biggest surprises, and share their take on what the data means for authors today.
We heard from authors across the spectrum, from first-time publishers to six-figure pros. To better understand how authors are feeling, we looked at four self-reported income tiers:
This breakdown gave us a clear picture of how sentiment shifts as authors progress in their careers and, more importantly, what the authors who are thriving are actually doing differently.
Before we get into the details, here are the three numbers that jumped out of the data immediately.
44% of authors are growing or holding steady. Twenty-three percent report their business is growing, and 22% are holding steady. Nearly half are holding their ground in what has been a turbulent year.
30% of authors are seeing a declining business. This is most pronounced in the Got Traction tier ($2,500–$10,000/month), where 36% reported decline. These are authors who had built something real and felt the floor shift underneath them, largely due to the Amazon A10 algorithm change and shifting ad platforms.
Despite all of it, 51% of authors expect their income to grow in the next 12 months. That optimism isn’t naïve; it tracks closely with what the growing authors are actually doing. More on that below.
When we asked, “On a scale of 1 to 5, how are you feeling about your author business right now?” here’s how the average breaks down by stage:
One thing’s clear: no matter where you are in the journey, you’re not alone.
We filtered for the authors who reported their business is currently growing, rated their sentiment 4 or 5 out of 5, and expect income growth in the next year. Then we asked: what are they doing differently?
The most important caveat first: this optimistic group was spread across all four income stages. A third of them were still in the starting-out tier. These are habits and strategies that work at any stage of the journey.
64% of growing authors are accelerating their output, compared to 36% of all respondents — nearly double. Volume is the one lever they fully control. When algorithms and ad platforms feel unpredictable, these authors lean hard into what they can control. As one author put it: “I will always have that book. It’s not built on sand.”
58% of growing authors actively use an author newsletter vs. 43% overall. They’re also doing newsletter swaps at a much higher rate (27% vs. 17%). Your email list is an asset you own outright — no algorithm can take it away. The authors who are thriving have internalized this and build that audience consistently.
If you need help building your list, our Subscriber Surge Giveaways can add 300–600 subscribers to your list over a two-month period with minimal effort on your end.
Despite the narrative that paid ads “don’t work anymore,” the authors who are growing are still running them and finding ROI. Promo sites, Meta Ads and Amazon Ads are the top 3 paid channels that growing authors are utilizing. They’ve figured out one or both platforms and continue to invest. The era of publish and pray is over. Publish and promote is what’s working.
Human audiobooks (43% vs. 28% overall), box sets (43% vs. 28%), translations (38% vs. 23%). These are catalog monetization plays — strategies for extracting more value from books already written. AI is enabling translations to be done far more cheaply, making this accessible at earlier stages than ever before. The logic compounds: write more books, then figure out how to get each one generating revenue across multiple formats and markets.
Growing authors still dislike AI-generated competition — but their attitude toward AI in their own workflow is different. They’re using it for ad campaign design, cover art, translations, and narration. They’ve made a pragmatic decision: if AI tools make their process faster and cheaper, they’re going to use them. That efficiency edge shows up in the results.
One more finding worth calling out: KDP exclusive vs. wide distribution does not separate growing authors from the rest. In the optimistic group, 46% were exclusive and 47% were wide — essentially a coin flip. Pick a path and commit to it. Then focus your energy on the five things above.
The same market events, the Amazon A10 algorithm change, AI flooding platforms, Meta ad shifts, are hitting every author. But the experience of those events is radically different depending on where you are in your journey.
The largest group in the survey, and the most varied in their experience. 29% say they’re still evaluating — too new to know where they stand, which is healthy and expected. Of those with a direction: 19% growing, 22% holding steady, 25% declining. Despite the challenges, 53% still expect income growth in the next year.
What they’re saying:
Authors at this stage are the most prolific writers in the survey — 48% are accelerating their output, the highest of any group. They have a real business that’s working, but know it needs to keep moving. 34% are growing, and 63% expect income to grow — the most bullish income outlook of any stage.
What they’re saying:
This is the stage feeling the most acute pressure. 36% report a declining business — the highest rate of any segment. Authors here built real, ad-dependent revenue, and the combination of A10 and ACX royalty restructuring has hit them hardest. Many describe sudden revenue drops of 30–50% with no warning. At the same time though, 41% are growing indicating that it is possible to still find success in this market. This group is the most active in diversifying, with the highest newsletter usage and translation activity of any stage.
What they’re saying:
Top earners are the most confident, but not untouched by industry changes. Several describe significant revenue drops from the A10 and Meta changes. The difference is how they’re responding: deliberately, with a diversification-first strategy built intentionally over time. 30% are growing, and 43% are holding steady. This group leads in translations, human-narrated audiobooks, and box sets. They’ve moved most decisively toward owned channels and away from platform dependency — by design, not desperation.
What they’re saying:
AI was background noise in our end-of-year survey. In this mid-year survey, it took center stage. And the responses were deeply varied — because whether AI is a threat or a tool depends almost entirely on where an author sits in their business.
The takeaway: authors have a choice about how they relate to AI. The ones who are growing have largely made a pragmatic decision to use it where it helps without letting it define how they feel about their business.
When we look at marketing channel usage by stage, a clear ladder emerges. Author newsletters scale from 39% at the starting-out stage to 73% at got-traction — the single clearest marker of a maturing author business. And Amazon Ads climb from 18% to 59% as authors move up the income spectrum.
Starting-out authors lean more on free channels: Organic Facebook/Instagram, and giveaways. Mid-tier authors layer in promo sites, newsletter swaps and Meta and Amazon ads. Top earners scale with increased spend on the large platforms: Amazon Ads and Meta Ads, while also leveraging their newsletter.
One of the clearest takeaways from this survey is that there isn’t one universal author experience right now. There are two.
For roughly a third of authors, 2026 has been difficult. Sales are down, marketing feels less effective, and the path forward is uncertain. Those challenges are real, and they’re reflected throughout the survey.
At the same time, there’s another group of authors telling a very different story. About half report that their business is stable or growing, and half expect their income to increase over the next year.
What’s striking is that these aren’t just different points along the same spectrum. The data is surprisingly bifurcated. Authors in today’s market often seem to be having fundamentally different experiences. When we looked more closely at the authors who were optimistic about the future, a few patterns emerged. They were more likely to be publishing consistently, building direct relationships with readers, investing in marketing, finding new ways to monetize their existing catalog, and experimenting with AI tools. Importantly, these authors weren’t concentrated in a single income bracket. We saw similar patterns among newer authors, midlist authors, and top earners alike.
Rather than pointing to a single conclusion, the survey suggests that the author market is becoming more uneven. Some authors are encountering significant challenges, while others are finding ways to adapt and grow despite those same conditions. The good news is that the authors finding success in today’s market aren’t confined to a particular genre, income level, or stage of their career. Their experiences suggest that while the path may be changing, opportunities to build a thriving author business remain very much within reach.
Methodology: Survey conducted mid-year 2026. 582 respondents self-selected from the Written Word Media author community. Stage classifications based on self-reported monthly income. All data is self-reported. Open-ended responses edited for length and clarity.