Your royalties (a percentage of sale) go to pay back your initial advance, so you won't get any until enough copies have sold to pay it back. And given the prevalence of piracy, deep discounting, etc. you will have to have sold a LOT of copies to get any royalties at all.
Which means you're going to have to live on that advance for at least five or six years, or as long as it takes to collect all the money you're owed, and for your publishers to recoup your advance. Which, on top of tax, etc. makes that imaginary six-figure sum seem a lot smaller than it first did.
Not to mention that due to the magic of Publisher Accounting, it’s quite possible (and indeed normal) for a book to be profitable for the publisher and yet never “earn out” for the author.
Most don't.
Not hard to do when they're earning three times as much per eBook sale as the author. Break even for the publisher is usually well before the advance is earned out for the author.
But… this is good? Otherwise you would HAVE to earn out, and as most authors never do, we’d all be dropped after the first contract.
One might call it good in a certain narrow technical sense, perhaps. I'd be more likely to use the term "exploitative", especially considering how trad is offloading a lot of things they should be doing (like marketing) off onto authors' shoulders, constantly squeezing for ever more profit.
And authors might be more likely to earn out if more trad publishers/imprints took their responsibilities toward marketing etc. more seriously, instead of following private equity strip-mining practices.
It's a business, so of course publishers need to make money on deals. I would consider it fairer if they'd flip the ebook rates after a book has earned out though, or even change to 50:50. They steadfastly refuse to do so, which feels deeply exploitative to me.
Yeah, in recording arts, it's not uncommon for labels to try to squeeze artists they failed to promote and go "you owe us your advance".
And of course, the majority of authors never get even *close* to a six-figure advance. So, yes. Believe in yourself, love what you do, but work that Plan B. Most authors do.
This is just for trad pub. Self-pub authors 'can' earn a monthly income from books. I've been full-time for 10 yrs & writing is my only income. We have to make an initial investment in editing/cover art/marketing. But we retain rights & can make audios & translations. These are passive income for me
Forgive my curiosity, but you mentioned you're full-time, you have 80+ books on Amz, I'm assuming a descend back catalogue is part of the strategy?
Yes. My books were translated into German, French & some Italian/Spanish. English books are also all audiobooks w/ human narration. I've signed some translations to other publishers to be made into FR +DE audio - my 2nd book ever is 10 years old & still earning an income from audio & translations
Ok, thank you, I've a long way to go yet, but at least there's hope. I'd like to get to full time eventually. Thanks again.
My advances,from reputable pubs, have been £500, £1250, £800. 6 weeks salary in my day job for 7 years writing full-time equiv hours, every week, on top of a f/t day job. I make that a salaried rate of 5.3 pence an hour 🤪