Anyone know anything about book royalties? - I've had an offer

TBagpuss

GothicStirling wrote: »

If I were you, I would do some research about the publisher first, and contact The Society of Authors to read over the contract before you sign any thing. I've been dabbling with writing for 10 years and 40% sounds fishy to me.

that was my first thought, too.

Do you know any other authors? Or read their blogs?
Los of writers have webpages and blogs and many write fairly openly about financial issues. Take a look at John Scalzi's blog, for example - he has written quite a lot about the finances of being a writer, and while he is US based I think royalties are fairly similar here.



Joining the Socirty of Authors and getting some expert input is a really good suggestion.

40% sounds extremely high to me so I would be querying whether this is a genuine publisher or what the small print of the contract says - I think that 5-12% of cover price is more normal (sometimes slightly higher for books sold directly by the publisher, as they are not havin to disclount for the bookshop)

e-books usually pay a bit more, so if your book is going to be published as an e-book only 40% may be a little more realistic

bap98189

Without reading the contract there is no way anyone on here can advise you. I suggest you read it closely and ask them a lot of questions such as:

• 40% of what price (it won't be the price the shop sells it for)?
• Who sets that price?
• What expenses are deducted as overheads (ie costs they deduct before they start paying out)?
• How are those calculated and whose share do they come from?
• How quickly do they pay you?

paddyrg

40%? There's more to this story, even JK Rowing will be getting nowhere even close to that ballpark.

I know Brewster Kahle looked at doing on demand printing in developing nations for some published works. He talked to a load of authors, offering them $1 per print - they all responded similarly surprised 'what, a whole dollar?!'

A regular publishing deal is like a music deal - they open your accountan, give you an advance and agree a royalty. Costs go against your account unless you've negotiated to push them to the publisher, so book tours etc the publisher may front but will add it to your account. Your royalties drip into the account, if they ever offset the advance and costs you get a cheque, not all will.

If you haven't had an advance up front, you don't so much have a publishing deal, but a self/vanity publisher. The quality will vary wildly, some are little more than bound printouts with the text vanishing into the spine, others will look and feel great.

bod1467

PrincessJR wrote: »

It's a factual book for quite a niche market (the paranormal)

Some may consider this an oxymoron.

tiger_eyes

Great advice in this thread, but you really need to take this to a professional writers' forum like AbsoluteWrite. A lot of small epublishers work on this model - no advance, no print run, but higher royalties on ebooks to compensate - but results can be very variable.

antrobus

TBagpuss wrote: »

... 40% sounds extremely high to me so I would be querying whether this is a genuine publisher or what the small print of the contract says - I think that 5-12% of cover price is more normal (sometimes slightly higher for books sold directly by the publisher, as they are not havin to disclount for the bookshop) ...

A more normal royalty rate would indeed be in the range of 5% to 15%, although you might find these days that it is on the publisher's received price rather than the cover price.


40%? I am sceptical. My guess would be that it is 40% of net profits. Which after a bit of Hollywood accounting might well come to precisely pounds zero.


I'd get somebody to look at that contract.

DKLS

If your asking about the contract, ask if its Multi channel and if so what channels and check what royalty rates those channels carry.