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I can only imagine the amount of work through the years that has never seen much of an audience. I think most written works have never seen much in the way of an audience, and not because they were necessarily bad, but they didn't know how to market their work, or it wasn't in the 'flavor of the month' genre the publishers thought would sell or for other reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of their work.
Just because it's not published doesn't mean it's not good.
Nor does it mean that because it's published that it is good. I think we've all seen examples of that.
Because of all that unseen/unread work, I don't think that it's correct to limit the simple word 'author' to someone who has had some paid success at it. I think the term 'author' only really works as 'someone who has written/done something creative with words'. It's a simple word, covering a broad band of people who may or may not have had any success with that creative work.
I think that people making any money at it are the exceptions, all the way around. Then calling them a Published Author, or Sucessful Author is the correct way to talk about those few who can actually make a living, or even get paid for their work.
Otherwise, the word 'author' itself belongs to everyone. Not just the exceptions.
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