Non-fiction advances

[avantman42]

Recently, I saw this on the Authors Guild blog:

Foer also pointed out that a loss of publishers could mean a loss of the nonfiction works requiring “deep reporting,” work which is time-consuming and expensive, and which can only be sustained by an advance from a publisher.

This isn't the first time I've seen people say that publishers, and their advances, are necessary for non-fiction. What I haven't seen is much evidence of what sort of advances are paid. Does anyone have any evidence regarding the size of advances for non-fiction? Are they shrinking? Or growing? Or staying steady? Are they large enough to sustain an author while they write their book?

Googling has been some help, but I'm hoping to find more. I've found a 2012 article that says "I saw an article in a trade journal recently that reported that the average advance for a nonfiction book was less than $80,000." and a 2011 survey of 105 authors, of which 30% wrote non-fiction, which seems to agree with the 2012 article. Neither of these are great sources, though - one refers to an unnamed other source, the other is based on a very small sample. Both are a few years old.

Does anyone have any solid information on what sort of advances are paid for non-fiction books nowadays?

[pwalker8]

Given that not many non fiction books make $80,000, that seems about right to me. Many writers of non fiction books have day jobs, for example, college professors or journalist, that allows them to write. Steven Levitt (Freakonomics) is a college professor, Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist.

[avantman42]

My understanding is that most authors of all types have a day job to support themselves financially.

What Franklin Foer said (and I quoted) is that publishers are able to pay non-fiction authors a large enough advance for the author to spend time and money researching the book. It also implies that those authors don't need to have a day job during the period that they are writing and researching. I've heard that argument put forward before in defence of publishers. I'm just trying to work out whether or not it's a valid argument.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Recently, I saw this on the Authors Guild blog:



This isn't the first time I've seen people say that publishers, and their advances, are necessary for non-fiction. What I haven't seen is much evidence of what sort of advances are paid. Does anyone have any evidence regarding the size of advances for non-fiction? Are they shrinking? Or growing? Or staying steady? Are they large enough to sustain an author while they write their book?

Googling has been some help, but I'm hoping to find more. I've found a 2012 article that says "I saw an article in a trade journal recently that reported that the average advance for a nonfiction book was less than $80,000." and a 2011 survey of 105 authors, of which 30% wrote non-fiction, which seems to agree with the 2012 article. Neither of these are great sources, though - one refers to an unnamed other source, the other is based on a very small sample. Both are a few years old.

Does anyone have any solid information on what sort of advances are paid for non-fiction books nowadays?

Kickstarter (and social funding sites like it) is very much able to replace publishers in this instance.
Next absurd strawman step to the fore.

[avantman42]

Kickstarter is an obvious alternative, though I can see why some authors would rather deal with publishers, if only because they know the publishers and don't know Kickstarter.

Your point raises an interesting question, though. Has anyone successfully crowd-funded a non-fiction book?

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Kickstarter is an obvious alternative, though I can see why some authors would rather deal with publishers, if only because they know the publishers and don't know Kickstarter.

Your point raises an interesting question, though. Has anyone successfully crowd-funded a non-fiction book?

http://www.selfpublishingadvice.org/crowdfunding/

Yes.

And if someone were to do a proper biography of Julie London I would be in.

Assuming it was covering her acting career, her singing career, her marriage with Jack Webb, the active social life she and Bobby Troupe had for many years, her kids, whole enchilada basically. So far the offerings about her life have been pretty lame.

There are many books for which there is a market waiting for a dedicated author.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Phogg

http://www.selfpublishingadvice.org/crowdfunding/

Yes.

That's an interesting link, but it didn't say whether or not anyone had successfully crowd-funded a non-fiction book. It did, however, prompt me to have a deeper look at Kickstarter, and at least one person has used it to pay them a salary while writing a non-fiction book: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...2598/zenhabits.

Re-reading my first post, I may not have been clear about what I was wanting to find. Does anyone have evidence that publishers pay non-fiction authors enough of an advance to enable the author to research and write the book without needing a day job?

[pwalker8]

As far as I can tell kickstart and other crowd sourcing projects are one of those ideas that sounds great, but rarely works. It has the same basic issue as the tragedy of the commons in economics. Basically, everyone assumes someone else is going to pay for it. I've seen kickstart project work where the originator (or someone supporting him or her) is very aggressive in pushing it, but that's pretty rare. Just think, how many people are going to have to kick to raise $80K?

I suspect that if it gets to the point where publishers are no longer able to afford advances for non fiction, then we were see more use of grants and patrons, kind of how the arts were paid for during the Renaissance.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

As far as I can tell kickstart and other crowd sourcing projects are one of those ideas that sounds great, but rarely works.

Successful crowdfunding requires far more planning, and organization, than getting a loan from a bank. Part of that planning involves:

• Drawing up financials that are even more exhaustive than used when applying for a bank loan. ^1;
• Attracting the attention of people who don't even know that the area of endevour that whatever you want funded, exists. ^2;
• Persuading people that oppose your project, to fund it.^3;
• Being realistic.^4;

then we were see more use of grants and patrons, kind of how the arts were paid for during the Renaissance.

I can't point to any specific evidence, but I've noticed an increasing number of non-fiction books either list grants that were used to fund research, or writing the material, or thank specific patrons for financial support, or both. I don't know if that information is provided due to more stringent disclosure rules that are legally enforced, or changes in various codes of ethical conduct, or if the use of grants and patrons is really increasing.

^1: More than one successfully crowd-funded project was sunk, because the planners did not account for taxes owed on the revenue obtained by crowd-funding. Other successfully funded ventures were almost sunk, becuase of unexpected costs, that were a direct result of using crowdfunding.

^2: In looking at a number of projects on KickStarter, I noticed that:

• Crowd-funding that relies on 1,000 "true fans" is inevitably going to fail;
• Crowd-funding that relies on 100,000 hangers-on, will succeed;
• Offering several widely dispersed levels of financially contributing is mandatory;

The majority of hangers-on appear to be completely unfamiliar with every aspect of the field that the project is within. These hangers-on make small contributions, but, en masse, push the funding over the goal.

^3: The rational here, is that those who oppose the project, do so, purely because their objections have been neither acknowledged, nor addressed. Address those issues, and the oponents will support your project;

^4: I'm looking specifically at books that people sought crowd-funding for:

• Starting from scratch,translating from Medieval Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, and Latin roughly 1,500 handwritten pages, and publishing it, within a nine month time frame. No information about translation skills or experiance was mentioned in any of the promotional material;
• Photograph every church in the state capital, and publish the results in a book. Estimated time frame --- six months;
• An unauthorized sequel to Gone With The Wind;
• Building each device that Testla patented, and publishing the diary of that experience;
• A family history;
• This history of a plot of land in a small town;

Getting any of those projects successfully funded is a non-starter.

[SteveEisenberg]

Fiat_Lux sounds reasonable to me.

Originally Posted by Phogg

Kickstarter (and social funding sites like it) is very much able to replace publishers in this instance.
Next absurd strawman step to the fore.

Originally Posted by avantman42

That's an interesting link, but it didn't say whether or not anyone had successfully crowd-funded a non-fiction book. It did, however, prompt me to have a deeper look at Kickstarter, and at least one person has used it to pay them a salary while writing a non-fiction book: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...2598/zenhabits.

From the last link:

This book will help you make any change:

Exercise
Eating healthy
Getting out of debt
Overcoming procrastination
Losing weight
Dealing with frustrations & stress
Improving relationships
Simplifying & decluttering
Meditating and being mindful
Dealing with major life changes
And much more

This is not what I think of when I think of nonfiction.

Maybe the distinction shouldn't be between fiction and nonfiction, but between works of imagination, and books that require lots of research which includes traveling.

To me, it's not just a question of whether kickstarter reported and researched nonfiction books exist, but if a good argument can be made that they are among the best on the topic.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I suspect that if it gets to the point where publishers are no longer able to afford advances for non fiction, then we were see more use of grants and patrons, kind of how the arts were paid for during the Renaissance.

Or academia today.

We've already seen several examples where newspapers and magazines have become a rich man's plaything.

This may be one:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-d...e-new-republic

If I'm right that kickstarter in particular, and self-publishing in general, isn't working for producing great research-and-reporting-intensive nonfiction, this means advance-paying publishers will remain strong there.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

but if a good argument can be made that they are among the best on the topic.

The most probable scenario for that to happen are:

• Translation of an existing work from another language;
• Critical editions of obscure works;
• Things that make for a solid backlist title for a specialized publisher, but whose front list sales will ensure that it never gets to midlist status. (This is due to the Five Sisters trying to get those specialty publishers they purchased, to use the same criteria in keeping midlist books, as they do for Mills & Boone backlist titles.) ;

this means advance-paying publishers will remain strong there.

I wouldn't count on it. With the Mills & Boone mentality that the Five Sisters are exhibiting, a critical edition of John Dee's Hieroglyphic Monad probably won't get an advance, but An Idiot's Guide To John Dee will get an advance.

[darryl]

Looking back to the original post, I don't think this thread has advanced us any further whatsoever. We continue to operate in an almost complete factual background. Personally, I am quite skeptical about the role of Big Publishers as Patrons of Non-Fiction. I suspect this claim might be a little like saying I support charities whilst giving $50 annually to Barnardo's. I am open to being convinced otherwise by hard facts and figures, but am not holding my breath.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by darryl

Looking back to the original post, I don't think this thread has advanced us any further whatsoever.

Unfortunately, I agree. The Kickstarter tangent was interesting, but there has been very little (if any) evidence presented to either support or refute the claim that was presented in my original post.