When literary agent Sarah Yake shopped around Kirsten Kaschock's debut novel 'Sleight' this year, she thought it would be a shoo-in with New York's top publishers.

'Her project was one of the most exemplary in the last decade or so,' said Jed Rasula, who has taught in the English department at the University of Georgia since 2001. 'I certainly thought she'd find a New York publisher.'

But the major New York publishers passed on 'Sleight,' a novel about two sisters trained in a fictional art form. Coffee House Press in Minneapolis, a small independent publisher, now plans to publish the book, offering Ms. Kaschock an advance of about $3,500 -- a small fraction of the typical advances once paid by the major publishing houses.

It has always been tough for literaryfictionwriters to get their work published by the top publishing houses. But the digital revolution that is disrupting the economic model of the book industry is having an outsize impact on the careers of literarywriters.

Priced much lower than hardcovers, many e-books generate less income for publishers. And big retailers are buying fewer titles. As a result, the publishers who nurtured generations of America's top literary-fictionwriters are approving fewer book deals and signing fewer new writers. Most of those getting published are receiving smaller advances.

'Advances are down, and there aren't as many debuts as before,' says Ira Silverberg, a well-knownliterary agent. 'We're all trying to figure out what the business is as it goes through this digital disruption.'

Much as cheap digital-music downloads have meant that fewer bands can earn a living from record-company deals, fewer literary authors will be able to support themselves as e-books win acceptance, publishers and agents say. 'In terms of making a living as a writer, you better have another source of income,' says Nan Talese, whose Nan A. Talese/Doubleday imprint publishes Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and John Pipkin.

In some cases, independent publishers are picking up the slack by signing promisingliterary-fictionwriters. But they offer, on average, $1,000 to $5,000 for advances, a fraction of the $50,000 to $100,000 advances that established publishers typically paid in the past for debut literaryfiction.

The new economics of the e-book make the author's quandary painfully clear: A new $28 hardcover book returns half, or $14, to the publisher, and 15%, or $4.20, to the author. Under many e-book deals currently, a digital book sells for $12.99, returning 70%, or $9.09, to the publisher and typically 25% of that, or $2.27, to the author.

The upshot: From an e-book sale, an author makes a little more than half what he or she makes from a hardcover sale.

The lower revenue from e-books comes amidst a decline in book sales that was already under way. The seemingly endless entertainment choices created by the Web have eaten into the time people spend reading books. The weak economy also is contributing to the slide.

'We aren't seeing a generation of readers coming along that supports writers today the way that young people supported J. D. Salinger and Philip Roth when they were starting out,' says Ms. Talese, who is married to the author Gay Talese.

Sales of consumer books peaked in 2008 at 1.63 billion units and are expected to decline to 1.47 billion this year and to 1.43 billion by 2012, says Albert Greco, a book-industry market researcher.

E-books sales are exploding. Currently, e-books account for an estimated 8% of total book revenue, up from 3% to 5% a year ago. Mike Shatzkin, a publishing consultant, estimates e-books could be 20% to 25% of total unit sales by the end of 2012. 'Eventually, digital books will overtakephysical books,' Mr. Greco predicts.

Some book-industry experts say that lower e-book prices could increase overall unit sales eventually. Whether they will make up for the loss of hardcover income remains to be seen.

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

• literary [´litərəri] a.文学(上)的 (初中英语单词)
• project [prə´dʒekt, ´prɔdʒekt] v.设计；投掷 n.计划 (初中英语单词)
• income [´inkʌm] n.收入，所得 (初中英语单词)
• well-known [,wel´nəun] a.著名的，众所周知的 (初中英语单词)
• writer [´raitə] n.作者；作家 (初中英语单词)
• promising [´prɔmisiŋ] a.有希望的；有为的 (初中英语单词)
• entertainment [,entə´teinmənt] n.招(款)待；联欢会 (初中英语单词)
• reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
• economy [i´kɔnəmi] n.经济；机制；组织 (初中英语单词)
• generation [,dʒenə´reiʃən] n.发生；世代；同龄人 (初中英语单词)
• account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
• physical [´fizikəl] a.物质的；有形的 (初中英语单词)
• decade [´dekeid] n.十年(间) (高中英语单词)
• georgia [´dʒɔ:dʒjə] n.乔治亚 (高中英语单词)
• publisher [´pʌbliʃə] n.书籍出版者；发表者 (高中英语单词)
• offering [´ɔfəriŋ] n.提供；礼物；捐献 (高中英语单词)
• fraction [´frækʃən] n.小部分；一点儿 (高中英语单词)
• typical [´tipikəl] a.典型的；象征的 (高中英语单词)
• fiction [´fikʃən] n.小说；虚构；谎言 (高中英语单词)
• acceptance [ək´septəns] n.接受；承认 (高中英语单词)
• revenue [´revinju:] n.税收；收入 (高中英语单词)
• seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
• consumer [kən´sju:mə] n.消费者；用户 (高中英语单词)
• billion [´biljən] num.万亿 (高中英语单词)
• overtake [,əuvə´teik] vt.追上；赶上 (高中英语单词)
• generate [´dʒenəreit] vt.创造；发生；引起 (英语四级单词)
• trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
• economics [i:kə´nɔmiks, i:,-] n.经济学 (英语四级单词)
• painfully [´peinfuli] ad.痛苦地；费力地 (英语四级单词)
• amidst [ə´midst] prep.=amid (英语四级单词)
• seemingly [´si:miŋli] ad.表面上；似乎 (英语四级单词)
• eventually [i´ventʃuəli] ad.最后，终于 (英语四级单词)
• impact [´impækt] n.影响，作用；冲击 (英语六级单词)