Survey of Contemporary American Writers (1980)

Investigators: Paul Kingston and Jonathan Cole

Population: Writers

Identification Method: Living American writers invited to join the Author’s Guild. Population identified from two separate lists: the membership of the Author’s Guild as of fall 1979, and the guild’s list of book writers who had been invited to join the guild between 1976 and 1979 but had declined. The Author’s Guild invites every type of commercially published author regardless of quality of published work.

Sampling Procedure: Systematic Sampling from both lists to obtain 3,200 (of 5,000) from the Author’s Guild membership list and 1,900 (of 4000) of contemporary invitees to the guild who had declined. The sample after undeliverable mail, etc. included 4,856 authors.

N and Response rate: 46 percent (2,241 of 4,856)

Publications: Kingston, P. and J.R. Cole. 1986. The Wages of Writing: Per Word, Per Piece, or Perhaps. NY: Columbia University Press.

Kingston, P. and J.R. Cole. 1985. "Authors: A Disconnected Profession." Book Research Quarterly 1(Fall): 47-61.

Kingston, P.W. et al. 1981. The Columbia University Economic Survey of American Authors. New York: Columbia University Press.

Summary: Survey investigated the economic and social condition of American published writers.