This info seems to be all over the place, so I'll consolidate based on my experiences. I hope I get everything right. I know this stuff but don't always remember it all in the right order!
1) Publisher "leases" the right to print your book for a set period of time. Some scam sites claim a legit house will
take your rights, but only if you're silly enough to sign such a contract. This "lease" is for a set period of time (let's say 3 years) or circumstances (the sales drop off so it is not cost effective to continue and your books are remaindered).
2) The publisher gives you an advance check. For a new writer who is not being godmothered with a cover quote from Nora Roberts, expect low four figures. My first book's advance was about 1000.00 in 1988. Sadly, things have not improved much.
Show Me the Money! ALWAYS assume you will get the
lowest advance offered!
I had HOPED it would be along the lines of 100K because I had fallen for the stories of guys like King getting millions in advance money.
In the publishing world, he essentially won the lottery with a 200K advance for
Carrie. Prior to that he'd been writing for years and making bupkis.
Such is the stuff of legends. It keeps us going, but it doesn't happen to everyone.
One of the biggest follies about writing is that you can get rich at it. I tell people I'm a writer and they think I'm rolling in the dough.
Until they see what I'm driving.
They've heard about those legendary advances, too.
The reality for the rest of us is if we are VERY lucky our first sale might get an advance of 1,500-2,000.00. If you spent a few years writing that first book it's not much of a return, but you'd be writing anyway because you can't stop yourself, so you might as well get some money for it.
If an agent represents you, she keeps 15 percent of that. The publisher sends an advance check to the agent, who will cut another check to the writer, minus the agent's 15%.
She earns it by making sure the contract is fair to your interests and reserves various rights like media and foreign sales.
She can sell your book all over again to various publishers in other countries, which is most cool.
She will have contacts in the business that you don't have in places you never heard of, so it is worth it to me to have an agent. Her sale of one of my series to a Euro house netted me enough to make a down payment on a house and afford to move in and buy furniture. It only took me 15 years to get to that point!
3) After a lag of about 18 months--and you'd better be writing and finishing your next 3-4 books during that time--your book will be released.
Do not expect huge signing parties, gala events with you hobnobbing with the literati. Unless you are the number one main writer for a house that month you will not be sent on a nationwide tour and have your name in the Times and be invited to speak on Oprah.
Most houses have their number one release, which is the book they expect will net the most profit. They put most of their ad budget behind it. The rest of the budget goes to their #2 & 3 books, and their other writers pretty much have to fend for themselves. Not all publishers do this, but that's how it was for me. A couple times they took out ads in a trade magazine with a picture of my cover on a page with 7 other covers. It's easy to get lost in the crowd.
Chances are that you've set up a signing with a local B&N, invited all your friends, and no one shows up and no one buys a copy, 'cause who the heck ARE you anyway?
Take it in stride. Be pleasant. No one likes to buy a book from a grumpy gus. Thank the store manager. Go home and write.
4) Let's say your publisher prints 3000 mass market paperbacks, selling for 7.99.
We'll say your royalty for that is 7% of the cover price. For each one sold you make .55.
You have to sell 1819 copies to earn out the 1000.00 advance the publisher gave you.
After that advance has earned out, all other sales (royalties) are totaled up and in a year or six months you get a royalty check.
The larger the advance, the more copies you have to sell to earn out.
It is not good when you don't make back your advance money. I've a couple of hardcovers (now paperback) that are still a few hundred bucks short of earning out. As the books are now "out of print" they will never earn out. (The house plans to reprint them in a 2-book omnibus, so not all hope is dead.)
As a consequence the house did not offer me a big advance on the next book in the series. It's less than half what I got on the previous books.
I wasn't happy, but took the money. I need it and I need to have my name on a book in the stores so my readers know I'm still writing!
5) Switching agents-whoever made the sale represents you for that title. They can be fired by you, but they still have the representation on that work, so be nice if you decide to let them go.
I have switched agents. My new agent reps for a series of books my old agent sold. She called him up. It wasn't worth it to him to continue trying to get money from that series so he let her take them over. I wasn't a big earner for him, but my new agent saw differently. She's the one who sold the lot to Europe, when the old agent couldn't be bothered.
My agent pays more attention to the market than I do, and thus was in a good position to get things going on several anthology deals for me, with me as the editor. I'd have never done that on my own!
My new agent (11 years I've been with her) is now with a different agency. All the writers she repped for at the old agency came with her to the new one. Our checks just have a different name on the top.
6) Cover price percentage vs Net God but THAT is scary!
Never ever sign a contract that screws you over with payment from net profit instead of cover price percentage. Once the bean-counters are done, you won't be making anything. That's why the movie,
Forrest Gump, has supposedly never made a profit.
7) Do not sign a multi-book contract where your royalties are joint-accounted.
As I understand it, it means you will not get royalty money until the last book released makes back its advance.
Which may never happen.
Book One could sell well and earn out.
Book Two might sell poorly.
Book Three could be canceled altogether based on B2's poor sales.
You can keep your advance check for them, but in every other sense you're hosed.
This happened to a friend of mine, who had to adapt 6 different pen names over the years to avoid the stigma of poor sales because her publishers did this to her.
"It only sold 4K copies," they said.
"But you only PRINTED 4K copies!" she'd tell them. "That's a 100% sell-through!" And 4K copies wasn't enough to earn out the advance.
They'd shrug and say "We can't help that, good luck with another house."
The
publisher made money, but they didn't have to pay her royalties. She got a new agent (the one I'm with) and things improved. In the last three years she started getting tons of book sales. One even went to auction, but she is NOT getting 6 figure advances or her home would be paid off.
For all other questions on the business side of writing, hit the 808 section of the local library.
When you sell your writing you are a small business owner. You need to learn about contracts, clauses, how to do your taxes, all that boring stuff.
Happily, it is NOT rocket science. I was able to learn it.
It is what you DON'T know that can cost you!
