The final decade for full-time novelists?

On his blog, science fiction writer Robert J Sawyer returns from the Canadian Book Summit predicting that full-time novel writing has only about ten years left as a viable career.

At the conference, many people cited the band model now prevalent for successful acts in the music industry: give away your music and make money off of live performances and T-shirts. I debunked that at the event by pointing out that the venue we happened to be in — Harbourfront Centre in Toronto — is home to the the International Festival of Authors, the world’s best, most-prestigious literary festival, a festival which, if you’re lucky, you get invited to every four or five years, and that this top-of-the-line opportunity to perform in front of an audience pays around $300, and might, with real luck, sell 50 hardcovers, of which the author’s share of royalties might be another $150.

Link via @JaneFriedman