Quote:
Originally Posted by avantman42
That's certainly how I read this:
Although I may have mis-understood.
Back in January, I asked:
No-one was able to provide any evidence. The best I'd found was 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." I still haven't seen any evidence one way or the other. If you have any, I'd very much like to see it. |
Are you trying to understand how the system works, or are you trying to score internet debating points?
Here is one article that I read on advances
http://work.chron.com/average-author...book-7181.html
It mentions in the article, that advances were originally intended to allow the author to finish his or her book. You might be surprised how far $80K will go for someone living frugally.
Here is another article that discusses author earnings, written in Jan 2015.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...l-350pa-survey
From the article, the median annual income from independent writers is $500 - $999. Traditionally published authors had a median annual income of $3,000 to $4,999, while hybrid authors had a median annual income of $7,500 to $9,999. Hum that average advance of $80K would look pretty darn good compared to those numbers. Only 10% earn 6 figures. None of this is particularly new. For all the fluff stories of authors, both indie and trad, earning huge sums of money, few authors are able to earn a living at it, nor have there ever been very many authors able to earn a living at it.
In the non fiction world, that $80K check might let a professor spend the summer researching his book rather than teaching summer classes.