Author Earnings
I know I am guilty of seeing a book on a Barnes and Noble or Target shelf and thinking the author is a millionaire. That if you've made it into those stores, you're golden. But the harsh reality is that authors have a long, hard path to making the money we may wrongly assume they are making.
So how are authors paid, exactly? Traditionally published authors are offered an advance from whichever literary agency has signed them, but then what? Your brain might go to the idea that they earn royalties (a percentage of every book sold), which is also correct, but how much is that? As I embark on publishing these are important questions to answer.
This is what I learned:
1) A debut author is typically offered an advance of $5,000-$15,000 though it could be as high as $50,000
2) A mid-list author may be offered $20,000-$50,000
3) Best-selling authors may be offered $100,000 up to several million dollars
J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, sold it to her publisher for around $2,000. Later, Scholastic bought the US rights for $105,000 but the majority of her millions came later when sales exceeded 600,000,000 copies worldwide. Of course as her books grew in popularity, her advances would follow.
Where royalties are concerned a hardcover may bring the author a 10-15% commission, a paperback 5-7% of the cover price, and an e-book around 25% of the price. This means that a $20 hardcover sale maybe only earns the author $2-3 dollars. Also, the author WILL NOT earn any of the royalties until their book has sold enough copies to "earn out" the advance they were given.
Of course merchandise, speaking engagements, or movie rights could bring in more money for an author.
I think the key takeaway here is that authors are not making a lot of money right away, even if they have a spectacularly good book. And if they are one of the select few getting 6 figure advances, that's a whole lot of pressure for the book to do well. If it doesn't, there is a high likelihood that future deals will be much harder to get. Some authors don't want that kind of pressure and would prefer to get a lower advance to start.
