Yann LeCun, a “silver professor” of data science, computer science, neural science, and electrical engineering at New York University, opened himself up for a lot of criticism with his take on selling books.
Citing an Authors Guild survey, Publisher’s Weekly reported that the median gross pre-tax income from writing a book is pretty dismal.
“The survey, which drew responses from 5,699 published authors, found that in 2022, their median gross pre-tax income from their books was $2,000, the outlet said. “When combined with other writing-related income, the total annual median income was $5,000.”
Readers were further informed that the top 10% of established authors who participated in the survey had a median book income of $275,000 in 2022, while the bottom 50% had a median book income of $1,300.
This prompted LeCun, a French computer scientist who’s known as one of the “Godfathers of AI” and is currently Vice-President and Chief AI Scientist at Meta, to propose that “most books” should be available for free — for the good of society, of course.
“Only a small number of book authors make significant money from book sales. This seems to suggest that most books should be freely available for download. The lost revenue for authors would be small, and the benefits to society large by comparison,” he tweeted.
Only a small number of book authors make significant money from book sales.
This seems to suggest that most books should be freely available for download.
The lost revenue for authors would be small, and the benefits to society large by comparison. https://t.co/4ObkW1tm85— Yann LeCun (@ylecun) January 1, 2024
Given the early feedback, LeCun would scramble to better explain himself.
“A lot of misunderstanding in the comments. I’m certainly not suggesting there should be a rule forcing authors to release their books for free or anything,” he said in a follow-up. “I’m just making the point that many authors who are more motivated by intellectual impact than by a thousand bucks of income should probably just make their book available for free download. This does not preclude publishing a paper version. A number of folks in the academic world do this.”
A possible caveat for distinguishing that “most books” be freely available could be that our hero has a book currently for sale. As a social media users stated, “Walk the talk — why don’t you start with your books?”
Walk the talk — why don’t you start with your books? pic.twitter.com/z6iDic7YNz
— MAL (@mlopes) January 1, 2024
Here’s a quick sampling of other responses to the story, as seen on X:
Working for free sounds amazing. Why didn’t we think of working for free before??
— ArchLobster (@ArchLobster) January 1, 2024
“Only a small number of businesses make significant money for their owners. This seems to suggest that most people should give away their products and services.”
— A Cerbic (@a_cerbic) January 1, 2024
It’s always the wealthy guys in tech who think others should work for free, innit?
Rich kids who like playing commie with other peoples’ lives.
— Haz (@Michael_Haz) January 1, 2024
No, there was no misunderstanding.
Do you have a clue how long it takes to write a decent book and the costs involved to publish?
Or how long it takes to go from $2,000.00 a year to a decent income. Most overnight successes are usually a decade in the making.
But it never…
— Herman P. Hunter, Author (@HermanPHunter1) January 1, 2024
Did not expect the dumbest post of 2024 this soon but here we are https://t.co/4jYbQgLVxE
— Robert Kroese (@robkroese) January 1, 2024
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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