Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
You do understand that a book that doesn't earn out the advance, then the publisher eats that loss. In the vast majority of cases, a book that doesn't earn out the advance, is going to lose money. There may be a few that are so close to earning out, that they aren't a loss, but not many. The million copy best sellers are what drives the profit margin for most publishers.
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No, this is not the case. They earn a high enough percentage on most books compared to the author that in fact, they can avoid a loss even when the book doesn't earn out. There are multiple articles about how these things break down, but the publishing industry does like to portray an advance that doesn't earn out as this huge loss for them. I used to follow several agent blogs and publishing news rags that had good articles now and then. I don't follow them now or I'd have links handy.
It is true that the bestsellers drive profit margin.