Last month’s announcement that Penguin had signed Pippa Middleton to write a party-planning book for an advance reported to be close to £500,000 caused a bit of a stir in the writing-related corner of the internet. For a couple of days Twitter was clogged with editors, agents and writers despairing about the deal and even…
Tag Archive: royalties
Which Rights Should You Sell?
Bearing in mind how many rights reside in every single book that’s written, should you refuse an offer if the publisher is demanding world rights in all formats? Not necessarily. If the publisher has more chance of selling foreign rights than you do, you might well be better off granting them the rights to do…
They Had It Coming Indeed: Part IV
This is the fourth blog post in a shortish series in which I analyse an article written by David Rozansky, publisher of Flying Pen Press (discussed here at AbsoluteWrite), regarding literary agent Andrew Wylie’s decision to set up his own publishing house, and license e-book rights to some of his clients’ works exclusively to Amazon….
They Had It Coming Indeed: Part II
This blog post is the second in a series in which I analyse an article written by David Rozansky, publisher of Flying Pen Press, regarding the recent decision by literary agent Andrew Wylie to set up his own publishing house and license e-book rights to some of his clients’ works exclusively to Amazon. You can…
Reported Sales: Selling In vs. Selling Through
There are two different levels of sales for books: the numbers that sell from publisher to bookshop; and the numbers which sell on from bookshop to reader. That first number, which is usually referred to as the sell-in figure, is always the higher of the two, because a few books will always get lost, stolen…
Guest Post: The Implications Of Second-Hand Book Sales
My thanks to Nicola Morgan for this post. Second-hand books—what’s not to like? The ultimate in recycling, they raise money for charities and independent second-hand bookshops, and offer cheap reading material for those who can’t afford the full price. At which point, allow me to draw some deep breaths, because I’m trying to be moderate…
Sales Statistics: A New York Times Bestseller
Have you ever wondered what a bestselling author earns? Or how many copies are sold as a result of chart placement? Last week, I was thrilled to discover that the author of a book which debuted on the New York Times bestsellers list had made a copy of her latest royalty statement available on the…
What Writers Earn (Part II)
In 2005, the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society commissioned a study of authors’ earnings. Its findings* make depressing reading, as did those from a similar study carried out by the Society of Authors in 2000. The ALCS study established the following statistics for UK writers. The top 10% of UK authors earned more than 50%…
Cover Price, Gross or Net?
Royalties can be calculated in all sorts of ways. They’re usually calculated as a percentage of the selling price, which seems pretty straightforward: but there are all sorts of ways that things can get complicated, and it’s essential that writers check their contracts carefully and ensure that they understand all that it implies. A percentage…
The Problem Of Returns
Bookshops are reluctant to buy books they aren’t sure of: the worry is that they’ll get stuck with stock they cannot sell, and so lose profit in an already tight market. Consequently, booksellers try to avoid buying any stock on a firm sale basis, and usually do all they can to buy books on sale…
YouWriteOn Publishing: What’s In It For The Writer?
Following yesterday’s post about the cost of publishing with YouWriteOn, I’ve been asked how writers can work out for themselves whether or not this is a good deal. Because we don’t know how YouWriteOn will define the “printing costs” it mentions in its contract we don’t yet know what share of the revenue will be…
Perpetuating The Myths
While browsing recently, I found an article called How Amazon Could Change Publishing, written by Sramana Mitra. According to her biography she has no direct experience within publishing, and it shows. Mitra’s article is full of the sort of errors that just ten minutes of basic research could have avoided. Most of her errors have…
Earning Out
As I’ve discussed before, a book is said to have earned out when the amount of royalties due exceeds the amount of the advance paid. Most books—perhaps 70%—don’t earn out and it’s often assumed that they therefore don’t earn a profit for the publishers. This isn’t necessarily the case. The amount of advance paid is…
Kristin Nelson's Agenting 101
There’s a fascinating, detailed series of blogs about the agenting process over at Kristin’s blog, Pub Rants, which I’ve only just discovered. The first one is here. There are twelve in all, in addition to her regular blogs, and you can find them all in the bar on the right-hand side of her blog. Go…
Advances
When a commercial publisher signs up a new writer, it is usual for the publisher to pay the writer an advance against future royalties. This advance will usually be paid in stages: on signing the contract; on the publisher’s acceptance of the completed manuscript; and on the book’s publication. If the writer has already submitted…
Assigning Copyright
Some publishers demand that their writers sign over their full copyright as part of a publishing deal: this is rarely a good thing for the writer, and but can be very lucrative for the publisher. All sorts of different rights coexist in a single piece of work, and each can be sold: for example, rights…
Royalties: An Introduction
When a writer is signed up to a commercial publishing house, the contract that both parties sign will set out in some detail the terms of payment involved. The first thing to remember is Yog’s Law: money flows to the writer. So the contract will specify how much money the publisher will pay to the…