How much do authors usually make?

Answer 1

I have explained this several times before.

Assuming it is a major publishing house and you have an agent, you can expect this.

The price of a book is based on 6 times the cost of producing the book. Basically it comes to around $24.95 - something in that range for about a 350 page book. Your royalties would be 10% or 2.49 less 15% for your agent or about 2.12.

The average first print run for a first time author is about 15,000 copies. Much less makes it not profitable to print. Assuming your agent is a good one, he or she will be able to negotiate you a 50% advance on your total commission. Or about 15,783.

In addition to the 15% commission, your agent is legally entitled to bill you for incidentals like making copies of your manuscript, postage, long distance calls, etc. -- all things they have to do in order to sell your book. They may not charge you for a reading fee, but they may charge you for these other things. And figure that at about 7 cents a copy, every time they duplicate a 350 page manuscript to send to a publisher to read, it costs you about 25.00.

If your book sells 7,501 copies, you start collecting royalties at the rate of 2.12 for each book you sell. If it sells less than 7,500 you will likely owe the publisher a refund of part of the advance. If your books end up on the bargain tables at the major bookstores, your royalty is ZERO.

If your agent and publisher negotiate with large wholesalers like Costco of BJ Warehouse, they will sell your books at about 55% of original cover. That lowers your royalties significantly. Down to around 1.37. However, your book will have a much larger base for people to purchase it. So there is some advantage to that.

Most first time authors take their advance and spend it on merchandising and marketing so they will guarantee higher sales. Your publisher may or may not kick in some promotion dollars - depends on your agent. Just so you know - to get your books on those tables inside the doors at Barnes and Noble will cost you about 1 dollar a book to Barnes and Noble. That is all paid advertising. Publishers rarely go all out on first time authors unless the book is very exceptional. The idea is to promote your book so the entire first run sells and the publisher prints a second, third etc. run. Your agent can negotiate a better deal for you then. But you have to be willing to gamble and spend money to make money.

On the other hand, if your book is being published by a smaller publisher (the more likely scenario) You can expect zero advance and a quarterly royalty check of 10% of your sales.

If you self publish, you pay to have your book printed and then you are on your own to sell it, promote it, etc.

So basically, the answer in short is that you will not see very much money on your average first book deal. In America today, traditional publishers are putting out 150 thousand books a year. And self publishers are probably putting out more than triple that. You are up against a lot of competition and a publisher is more likely to spend his advertising dollars on the latest Dean Koontz or James Patterson than on a newcomer.

That is basically how it works.
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They're, Their, There - Three Different Words.

Careful or you may wind up in my next novel.

Pax - C

Answer 2

Pay attention to Persiphone. She is with the major publishers. I am with the small publishers.

With the small royalty paying publishers who publish ebooks and POD (print-on-demand) you'll make less money than you spend on publicity. If you are good at it, you might show a profit, but don't expect to live on it. What does happen is you build a reputation so you have a customer base when you make the jump to the majors--and authors have jumped not only to the majors, but sold movie rights too.

Getting in with the small publishers is best viewed as a stepping stone to the big leagues.

Now self-publishing is different. This requires no talent. You just need money. If you printed out your book on your home computer and had it bound at Kinko's, you'd have the same success. No matter what a vanity publisher promises you, the truth is they are not concerned with your book once they print it and you've paid for it. They generally won't get you an ISBN number and no bookstore can stock your books without it.

If you go the self-publishing route, it does not count as a publishing credit. In fact, listing self-published books on your resume can count against you unless you can give sales figures that are very positive.

Oh, and you'll have to work hard to get those sales figures. The only self-published books I know of that became bestsellers are the Chicken Soup books. The guys who published those did more than self-publish. They created a business around it and they made deals with the major bookstores and WalMart because they could produce a hundred thousand copies in each print run. A normal self-published book is printed in 500 and 1,000 book lots. In effect, they became a publisher with just one kind of book to offer.

Answer 3

Depends, what the quality of the book is. For example Harry Potter; JK Rowling got 5 million for the first book! Wow! Otherwise like 5,000 to 50,000. Read the School Story by Andrew Clements, it tells about publishing.

Answer 4

90% of authors don't make enough to live on for at least the first five years, and then it depends what kind of contract you have, how many books have sold for which percentage of royalties, etc.. Starting authors do it for the love of writing and the chance they might become big.