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Old 07-10-2012, 10:46 PM   #52
charlesatan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post
a) advances are, as the very term suggests, the publishing equivalent of payday loans. They tide you over until the (royalty) paycheck gets in. Like them, they aren't too far from disguised loansharking. Unless Goodkind has been really unwise in his money management he should be well past *needing* an advance.
It's not loan sharking. You pay off loans. You don't pay off royalty advances (although you obviously don't get any more money if you don't earn enough royalties to cover advances).

Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post
b) the second use of advances is to disguise higher royalty rates for best-selling authors who get paid such large lump-sumps for their books they never earn-out their "advance" at the nominal rate. Given the mixed reviews of his last two books, it seems unlikely the "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately" trad publishers will be thinking of him as a *current* bestseller worthy of such a deal.
High royalty advances are a gamble. If they don't earn out their advance, why would a publisher continue to pay you that same amount for the next book, unless they think it'll sell better?

Quote:
From the author side, the economics of trad-pub and self-pub are so different as to be almost complementary so which way to go is a matter of personal situation at the moment of choosing.
Depends on what you mean by the Economics (for me, they are actually similar but I view them as businesses rather than some holy grail of print or eBook is sacred/art) but definitely there are pros and cons for each and the best route to take depends on the situation (and neither is it an either-or proposition).

Quote:
Neither approach is going away and the wisest authors will keep an open mind and choose the one best suited to each project on a case by case basis, doing what is best for *them*.
Agree.
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