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Authors don't "lose" rights when they publish commercially. They sell rights. Once the book goes out of print, they can get those rights back. Encouraging authors to believe that they will lose rights with "traditional" publishers is a common sales tactic in the vanity publishing world.
Plenty of books don't earn out their advances. But many do. With smaller advances, there's a better chance of that happening. (And advances don't have to be earned out for the publisher to turn a profit.) Also, if I sell my rights for $1,500, I'm $1,500 ahead, whereas a Morgan James author starts out $4,995 behind. I would guess that on average, commercially-published authors have a better chance of earning out their advances than vanity-published authors do of recouping their investments.
Profit margins in publishing certainly tend to be small. But I am skeptical--to put it mildly--of your assertion that publishers lose money on 94% of the books they publish. I'd love to see a citation for this statement.
- Victoria
Plenty of books don't earn out their advances. But many do. With smaller advances, there's a better chance of that happening. (And advances don't have to be earned out for the publisher to turn a profit.) Also, if I sell my rights for $1,500, I'm $1,500 ahead, whereas a Morgan James author starts out $4,995 behind. I would guess that on average, commercially-published authors have a better chance of earning out their advances than vanity-published authors do of recouping their investments.
Profit margins in publishing certainly tend to be small. But I am skeptical--to put it mildly--of your assertion that publishers lose money on 94% of the books they publish. I'd love to see a citation for this statement.
- Victoria