A great article in Salon explaining why it's a problem that "successful" authors don't explain where their money comes from: 'Sponsored' by my husband
I haven't had the luxury of a 'sponsoring' spouse, but I have been lucky in always having a reliable full-time job that allows me enough time to also write books. (Hence my less-than Burgess-like output.)
What do you think, should authors be more up-front about this?