dr_mabeuse
seduce the mind
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2002
- Posts
- 11,528
Here are the hard facts, based on an article in Romance Writers' Report and personal experience:
E-books:
It's easy to get published in E-books, but you'll get no advance. Instead, the publisher will take something like 60% of whatever you sell, and, unless they advertise or have a large market presence like Harlequin or Ellora's Cave, you probably won't sell more than a handfull, literally. At $6 apiece, you're talking about an author's profit of something like $20. A successful E-book with a small, unknown publisher may generate you something like $200-$300. The publicity and promotion are all up to you, and cut into your profits considerably.
On the other hand, signing on with a name publisher can get you an initial royalty check of a few thousand dollars when the book's released, and generate residual royalties of a few hundred dollars a month every month thereafter for as long as they carry the book, which will be forever since it costs nothing to keep the book in the catalog.
Hard-copy Books
Sell your masterpiece to Random House or Simon and Schuster and they'll give you an advance of $5,000. That's the normal going rate for a first-time author for most types of fiction. On the other hand, compared to E-books, your cut of sales is only a measly 8-10%, and they take back the first $5K to cover their advance. If your book comes out as a $6.99 trade paperback, that means you're getting $0.55-$0.60/book and have to sell ~9,000 books to pay back your advance. Since initial print runs are usually 10,000 copies, though, publishers expect to earn back their advances.
There's another rub, too. Many E-book publishers will pay royalties monthly or quarterly, while hard-copy publishers traditionally pay twice a year. If your hard-copy is published too close to one of these pay-out dates, they'll hold back a portion of your commission to cover the books they've shipped which they estimate will be unsold and returned to them, the "reserves against returns", calculated by an arcane formula only the publisher seems to know, so you won't get your fair amount.
Can you make a living writing books that aren't best sellers? Can you crank out a Harlequin romance every month and a half? Then it's possible. Until then, don't quit your day job.
E-books:
It's easy to get published in E-books, but you'll get no advance. Instead, the publisher will take something like 60% of whatever you sell, and, unless they advertise or have a large market presence like Harlequin or Ellora's Cave, you probably won't sell more than a handfull, literally. At $6 apiece, you're talking about an author's profit of something like $20. A successful E-book with a small, unknown publisher may generate you something like $200-$300. The publicity and promotion are all up to you, and cut into your profits considerably.
On the other hand, signing on with a name publisher can get you an initial royalty check of a few thousand dollars when the book's released, and generate residual royalties of a few hundred dollars a month every month thereafter for as long as they carry the book, which will be forever since it costs nothing to keep the book in the catalog.
Hard-copy Books
Sell your masterpiece to Random House or Simon and Schuster and they'll give you an advance of $5,000. That's the normal going rate for a first-time author for most types of fiction. On the other hand, compared to E-books, your cut of sales is only a measly 8-10%, and they take back the first $5K to cover their advance. If your book comes out as a $6.99 trade paperback, that means you're getting $0.55-$0.60/book and have to sell ~9,000 books to pay back your advance. Since initial print runs are usually 10,000 copies, though, publishers expect to earn back their advances.
There's another rub, too. Many E-book publishers will pay royalties monthly or quarterly, while hard-copy publishers traditionally pay twice a year. If your hard-copy is published too close to one of these pay-out dates, they'll hold back a portion of your commission to cover the books they've shipped which they estimate will be unsold and returned to them, the "reserves against returns", calculated by an arcane formula only the publisher seems to know, so you won't get your fair amount.
Can you make a living writing books that aren't best sellers? Can you crank out a Harlequin romance every month and a half? Then it's possible. Until then, don't quit your day job.
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