Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
And in 1974 Anne Rice got 12k for Interview with the Vampire when the norm for new authors was 2k. That is not even 10 times as much gap. 20k vs even the lowest figure 7 digit advance is a factor 50. If anything the pushing and creating and depending on a few best sellers became even more important over time. Especially now with ebooks.
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She earned it back fairly quickly didn't she? I don't necessarily know that Anne Rice and Interview with a Vampire is something to say that the advance system is broken. The idea on an advance is that the publisher advances the money based on what they expect to make. As long as the author earns out, then it's not a problem but rather an accurate reflection of what the author is expected to earn. Certainly, there are some examples of books getting huge advances and then not coming close to earning out. That's a lot more problematic, but I suspect that sort of thing is self correcting over time.
The publishing industry is a lot like the music industry and movie industry in that they all depend on the blockbusters to carry the financial load. It's been that way for a long while. As the cost of publishing books, creating music and creating movies goes down, we see more of the mid list artists becoming more profitable. I would still expect all three industries to be dominated by the blockbuster in the future, but that doesn't preclude non blockbuster authors from making a decent living at it.