Quote:
Originally Posted by RickyMaveety
Writers of books do not get paid a "salary." They get a royalty off of each book sold.
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That's often true, but not always.
I once wrote a chapter for a textbook and got paid £1500 as a one-off fee. The rights went to the publisher and I got no royalties at all.
However, it took me about three weeks' full-time writing. It was the most profitable bit of writing that I ever did. I earned more money on that than my partner did for his first book. (He had a royalty deal. The book just didn't sell in sufficient numbers, even though it was very good and took him two years to write. and he had to travel and consult French archives at his own expense.)
The moral is that life and the Free Market are not fair. Renumeration is not commensurate with either effort or originality.