This week will be like A-level results week for authors, but with added economic jeopardy. For a good whack of the 100,000 writers and translators in the UK, finding out how many books they have sold in the run-up to Christmas will mean the difference between turning on the heating and sitting shivering through the January frost. Many in the latter camp will be forced to accept that life as a professional novelist, poet or dramatist is no longer sustainable. Time to close the book. The end.

Can it be so bad? Surely novelists aren’t really on the breadline? Well, given that the median income for professional writers fell from £12,330 in 2007 to £7,000 in 2022, you can see why most will be desperately hoping for a festive bump in earnings. A bohemian life in a freezing garret only sounds attractive to those who have never lived it.

In a country proud of its literary history, we’re at a tipping point when the number of books and plays written could soon collapse with the number of people who can afford to create them.

It’s strange that the role of the creative is viewed as vital to the wellbeing of society – even wartime armies have entertainment corps – but when authors turn out their pockets to demonstrate what “broke” really means, they are told that they must pursue their art for art’s sake, that the love of writing will sustain them. No one expresses the same sentiment to dentists.

This is the pervading view of governments, too: health........

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