Royalties: What should you expect as an author?
I have never posted about the POD company I work for because I want to maintain a level of neutrality. My purpose for this blog has always been to help self-published and small-press authors, period. It doesn’t matter to me if you use the company I work for or not. What matters to me is that we are a brotherhood of authors. We should be propping each other up whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Having said that, this is my first post where I will mention my employer. And I will do so only because I get a lot of questions about royalties and what’s a “fair” royalty. There are a lot of misconceptions out there and the only way I can address this issue is through my personal experience with the print-on-demand company I use (which, surprise, surprise, happens to be the company I work for).
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let’s get down to business.
First, if you are a small-press author, you probably signed a contract and sold the rights to your book to the publisher. In that case, your publisher is assuming a lot of risk. There is an up-front investment on their part. They may have paid you an advance, but it was probably extremely small. I’ve seen advances in these situations that are sometimes as small as $1500. Nevertheless, the publisher is taking on production costs and paying a staff to find distribution for your book. Therefore you can expect to receive anywhere from a 10% to 15% royalty. Now if you have an agent, 10% to 15% of that royalty you receive will go to him or her. At the end of the day, for a book that retails for $15, you’ll get about $1.25 per book on the low end. In addition, the royalties will probably be paid either quarterly or bi-annually.
As a print on demand author, the numbers are much different. Let’s use me as a case study. First of all, I did not sell the rights to my books. BookSurge only offers a non-exclusive agreement. As a result, I am assuming the risk and making an investment to get my work published (granted because of the relatively low cost of publishing, the risk is minimal; also keep in mind once published, there is no risk in making your title available for sale as you never have to print and keep inventory). But, given my investment on the front end, I feel I should receive a greater reward on each book sold. BookSurge pays a 35% royalty. Since this publishing model does not require an agent, I currently don’t have one. So, for that $15 book I am paid $5.25. And to cap it all off, I receive royalty payments at the end of each month. A royalty of 35% is extremely high. I know some PODs offer “flex” royalties (you can choose a royalty as high as 50%), but the higher royalty affects the price of the book and much of the time, going for that higher royalty percentage will end up pricing your book out of the market. The BookSurge model works best for me. It keeps my book competitively priced while paying me the highest possible royalty. I’m not suggesting this will work for everybody.
As frequent visitors to this blog know, I am seeking a traditional book deal. Given the two examples I just gave, you may be asking yourself why. Well part of the reason is because I’m not looking for the $1500 dollar advance. I’m looking for a much bigger deal. I’ll take the low royalties typically given from a traditional publisher in exchange for the bigger advance. The other part is there is prestige that every writer is looking for that comes with a traditional deal. I am not beyond wanting that for myself. Going the POD route is the best decision I’ve ever made for my writing career. It has helped me build credibility for my work and as you can see, it’s helped me earn a little cash along the way. I would recommend it to any writer.
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Self-publishing, book marketing, promoting your book, how to make your book a bestseller, royalties, R.W. Ridley, Booksurge, Amazon
posted by R.W. Ridley at 1:36 PM
6 Comments:
I would think the main reason to go trad press would be typical volumes sold. After all, the amounbt per book you get matters less than the actual amount you get at the end of the day ;)
Emily - Volume with a traditional publisher depends on the size of the publishing house. A small press is going to have a relatively small print run. In fact, a good number of small presses are using POD companies as their printer.
Getting picked up by a big house is the trick. It's tough to get in the door. There are some estimates out there that 2 million plus manuscripts are submitted to publishers in any given year. Less than 2% make it to market.
You can get a high volume of sales using POD. You just have to have a solid marketing plan. That's what this blog is all about. :)
Indeed but I have found even a small but professional epublisher in my genre will shift 1000 copies in a year or two. Whereas I think self-publishers would more commonly be around 100 copies. Just my impressions/experience, of course. (not to mention ebook royalties are higher and cover prices are lower, but books are often only novella length). Too many variables! :)
Emily - eBook is a good option, but again not for everybody. Actually, I think it makes a great supplement to a book in print. I've sold a couple thousand POD books. It can be done. It just takes a lot of work and nontraditional thinking.
Landing a deal with a traditional publisher is the goal for many a POD-published novelist. I think it will be great to follow your pursuit of that contract here on your blog.
I'd think you have a lot of things that would be attractive to agents and traditional publishers, an award-winning book and some marketing saavy being chief among them.
Best of luck!
Dan
Dan, I've been meaning to email you, btw. Thanks for the heads up with the email you sent me a couple of weeks ago. Very interesting stuff.
On the traditional front. I do have some things brewing, but I don't want to comment because nothings been solidified. I've been close before only to have nothing happen, so I am proceeding with caution.
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