Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
At a big pub, the author may demand (and get) a $300,000 advance. A small publisher's advance could be $100,000 or less.
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For a big-name author.
For a midlist author, the advance is likely to be a tenth of that or less, no matter how big the publisher.
And remember that this is an
advance. In effect, it's a bet on the part of the publisher: "We bet that this book will earn more than $X in royalties, so we'll pay the author a $X advance against those royalties to get the book." If the publisher loses that bet -- that is, if the book never earns out its advance -- whose fault is that?
That's one of the reasons I keep harping on Baen, even though I dislike their politics: They've figured out how to keep the money coming. They don't depend on NYT bestsellers (though they've had several). They find good authors and sell their books in paper and electronic formats at a fair price. They pay fair advances to authors who know their books will earn out their advance, so everyone makes money. And they keep on doing it. They're not in trouble; they're growing instead of struggling. They've found a way to make money off books: give readers what they want to buy, and give authors what they need to sell. Unlike the big publishers, they're not betting against house odds (remember, house odds built Las Vegas). And, not surprisingly, it's working.
Lotteries are a tax on people who are bad at math. So is the current state of the publishing industry. They're still acting like the entertainment climate is the same as it was when books were the only game in town. It hasn't been that way for decades, and they've been coasting ever since. They keep on betting against house odds.