Going Rates

£5k for my first YA to be published Feb 2007
Literary/contemporary genre
(previously published one picture book and one reluctant reader)

I'm always curious about the conversion of pounds to USD. Going by the conversion rate, it would be $9500. However, oftentimes things cost the same or only slightly less in Britain than they do here (i.e., a movie that's $20 over here would be 20 pounds there, or a $14 book might cost 12 pounds there). Why this descrepancy between the conversion rate and actual prices? Why????

Hi,
I just got a YA (my first) and a juvenile novel (first in the category but 2nd book) accepted and got $1500 advance for each one... both books are with a small-to-middling size Canadian publisher.
-Cassidy

Elektra said:

Going by the conversion rate, it would be $9500.

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In my experience, pounds are deceiving in every way for dollar-toting Americans. Five thousand pounds seems to go about as far in UK as five thousand dollars in America. That's my experience, as a now-impoverished American backbacker through UK.

Because they don't call it "Rip-Off Britain" for nothing.

Britain is expensive. I guess advances reflect that?
I am always jealous of the prices of your CDs, cinema tickets, PETROL for God's sake. Our prices have been sky-high recently - do you know that two months ago I was paying 99.9p for a litre of petrol? According to my online converter, that's $1.90 per litre. It was costing me about £38 to fill my VW Polo. Fortunately, prices seem to be coming down again, although they're still at around 90p per litre. Good thing we Brits tend not to do regular two-hundred mile trips to see relatives (plus if you drove for two hundred miles in one direction from my house, you'd fall off the island)

Anyway, I digress...

Cassidy said:

Hi,
I just got a YA (my first) and a juvenile novel (first in the category but 2nd book) accepted and got $1500 advance for each one... both books are with a small-to-middling size Canadian publisher.
-Cassidy

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Congratulations Cassidy! May it be the first of many!

Not sure how much a litre is, but if it makes you feel better, we're paying nearly $3 a gallon. I always wonder why Brits don't just come over here, exchange their money for a small fortune, and live the good life.

Elektra said:

Not sure how much a litre is, but if it makes you feel better, we're paying nearly $3 a gallon. I always wonder why Brits don't just come over here, exchange their money for a small fortune, and live the good life.

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My grandmother-in-law, a war bride from Southport, convinced her sister to do that very thing. After a year in the U.S. Anutie Margie's bank account was nearly emptied by the extrordinary cost of health care. Why, she wondered, would I spend two thousand dollars (on an e.r. visit following a nasty fall on the stairs) on something that's free in England? Needless to say, she packed her bags and went on home.

Elektra said:

Not sure how much a litre is, but if it makes you feel better, we're paying nearly $3 a gallon.

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I can't find a proper convertor, but there seems to be a difference between a US gallon and a UK gallon. From what I can see, a UK gallon contains 4.546 litres and a US gallon contains 3.785 litres. So if you pay $3 a gallon, according to the US convertor, that makes 79 cents per litre, which at the current rate of exchange is about 42pence. Less than half of what I'm paying.

So no, it doesn't make me feel any better

I always wonder why Brits don't just come over here, exchange their money for a small fortune, and live the good life.

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Ah, I like the rain and the open-minded discussions about politics and religion

*slinks away in conversional shame*

Sorry, Popmuze!

I honestly don't know, it seems to be a case of horses for courses as far as countries go. I think Canada pays quite low rates, but must remember to say Congrats to Cassidy

Somewhere on these boards there is a link to going rates for publications, I think it was comparing unagented with agented contracts. Agented stuff got about a third more, if I remember rightly.

- I'm just touching on the petrol thing (I'm a brit, can't help it) about $7 gallon, elektra. We are sending you T Bliar as a Thanksgiving gift

popmuze said:

As the original poster of this thread, I would like to change the subject back to the original post, if I might.

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Sorry

$3,000...$9,000...I should be so lucky!

You can check Publishers Marketplace. They list deals and often tell what how much the author got paid, though they only tell in increments, the lowest increment being something like Up To $20,000, so that might not be specific enough for you.

Also, you have to be a paid member to view deals, I believe. Cost=$20 per month, but you can just pay for one month if you want and quit after that.

If it helps at all, most deals I've read seem to fall in the $20,000 and under increment.

I would say, popmuze, that it seems to me that YA is as competitive as adult right now with the same kind of fluctuation in advances. There are writers getting very very nice deals, though. The market is pretty hot.