Self-employment method
Publishing Industries
58,328 people filed as a nonemployer business under this industry code in 2022 — no payroll, no employees, just them. These are gross receipts reported to the IRS, before any expense is taken out.
Median GROSS RECEIPTS for the year — money in, before rent, materials, fuel, insurance or tax. This is not take-home pay.
Share who grossed under $10,000 for the whole year — before expenses.
The middle half, in gross receipts. A quarter of filers took less than the lower figure.
Source: US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
How often it does not work out
Of the 58,328 people who filed under this code in 2022, 47.61% grossed under $10,000 for the entire year — before a single expense was deducted.
That is a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes GROSS RECEIPTS, not net income. Everyone inside that share earned less than the figure suggests once rent, materials, mileage, insurance and self-employment tax came out — and filers who grossed well above the threshold may still have netted nothing. The true share of people who earn nothing meaningful from this is higher than the number above, never lower.
Denominator: establishments_total = 58,328 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full distribution Census publishes. The median above is interpolated inside the band that holds the 50th percentile.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 18,188 | 31.2% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 9,580 | 16.4% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 11,717 | 20.1% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 7,379 | 12.7% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 5,510 | 9.4% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 3,810 | 6.5% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,271 | 2.2% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 567 | 1.0% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 306 | 0.5% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $11,787 put the typical filer somewhere between a serious side income and a failing attempt at a full-time one, and the receipts figure alone cannot tell you which.
With 58,328 filers, this is a populated field. The market sets the price rather than you, and the useful question is what would let you charge above it.
10.2% of filers grossed $100,000 or more. That is a substantial upper tier by the standards of this dataset — the difference between a full operation and an occasional one is visible in the distribution rather than only in the anecdotes.
Independent publishing suits people who can market as seriously as they write, since discovery, not production, is the binding constraint.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 58,328 people did. Free entry is why the lower bands are as full as they are: the distribution below counts everyone who tried, not everyone who was ready.
Who should not do this
The top quarter of Publishing Industries earns 9.8x the bottom quarter — under $4,009 against over $39,436, a spread of $35,427. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Publishing Industries earns under $4,009 — $46,011 below the $50,020 a typical American job pays. Entering at the bottom and waiting is a live risk here, not a theoretical one, and some people never leave that quarter.
Do not start this assuming production is the hard part. Getting anyone to find it is the hard part.
47.6% of 58,328 filers in 2022 took under $10,000 across the entire year: 27,769 people. Close to half of everyone in Publishing Industries is in that band, and gross receipts is the generous way of counting it.
Take it as a floor, not an estimate. The $10,000 threshold is measured on money received, before materials, rent, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax, so the true share of filers who ended the year with no income is higher than the figure shown — we simply cannot say how much higher.
What the spread tells you
At 9.8x, the gap between $4,009 and $39,436 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $11,787 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
Put in money rather than ratios: $4,009 at the 25th percentile, $11,787 at the midpoint, $39,436 at the 75th. $35,427 separates the quarter of Publishing Industries at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $39,436. Reaching it from the $11,787 midpoint is $27,649 a year; reaching it from the $4,009 that the bottom quarter of Publishing Industries earn is $35,427.
The top quarter of Publishing Industries begins $27,649 above the $11,787 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $7,778 below it. A range stretched that far in one direction is the signature of a field where a small group earns a great deal more than the middle does.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Publishing Industries takes $5.66 in revenue — $1.92 at the bottom quarter and $18.95 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
Straight from the Census bands for Publishing Industries: 18,188 filers under $5,000, 9,580 between $5,000 and $9,999, 11,717 between $10,000 and $24,999, 5,954 above $100,000 and 2,144 above $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
These are GROSS RECEIPTS: everything that came in, before expenses. Rent, stock, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax all come out of the $11,787 midpoint before anyone eats, so it is not comparable with a $11,787 wage and should never be read as one.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $11,787 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else