Authors earning below poverty line – truth or an attempt to knock out the competition?

I saw this article posted by another writer in my Facebook feed yesterday. The title was compelling enough for me to click through to read the article. The article is short and you can read it for the specifics but the long and short of it is that writers are earning below the poverty line. Based on their survey. Which was conducted within their own membership and consisted of only 1400 participants.

Personally, I don’t put much stock in the results of this survey because:

• Given how many authors exist in this country alone 1400 participants is a very low sample
• They only surveyed their group members (it would be more accurate to say that within their own group, authors are earning below the poverty line, but that doesn’t make the news, does it?)
• We have to blindly accept that the data given by participants was true (not everybody tells…