On average how much does an author make per book sold?

MonkeyOnALeash

There is no average. Rowling, King, Koontz, Rice and the like make much better money than say a first timer. Jul 23 07, 8:52 AM

brian12086

Many authors don't even break even on publishings sometimes if their books don't popularize. Rowling had Harry Potter books out for years before they hit mainstream and she actually made a huge profit. Jul 23 07, 8:54 AM

kaung30

Mathematically, average is not a good way to get the statistic correct. There are just excellent authors, medium and beginners. Also, it depends on the target audience and the place where books are sold. So, it is not a good statistic if there was one on average of how much an author makes per book sold. Jul 23 07, 9:16 AM

lanfranco

An average could be worked out, if we had information on all the books sold in the world. Since we don't, I offer this site on book contracts, below. Under "Royalties," it points out that the best an author can expect is 15% of the cover price of trade hardcover books. That would be a royalty for a highly-successful author of mainstream novels. Different contracts will be negotiated for different genres, new and midlist authors, and non-fiction of various types: http://www.fonerbooks.com/contract.htm Jul 23 07, 9:33 AM

MonkeyOnALeash

Great research Frankie! Jul 23 07, 1:03 PM

cowboy3232001

First Novel Advances: The range is from $0-$40,000 for an advance on a first novel. The median advance is $5000. The median figure is a better indicator of what most people consider ‘typical.’ Mathematical average for first time advances was $6424. Adjusted for inflation, as the figures range in year from advances given in 1970 to this year, the median advance is ~$6000. First Novel Advances, Fantasy vs. Science Fiction The range in Fantasy first novel advances is from $0 to $40,000. The median first novel advance is $5000 for Fantasy (average is $6494) The range in Science Fiction first novel advances is from $0 to $20,000. The median first novel advance is $5000 for SF (average is $7000) In version 1.0 of this article, with 74 respondents, I had enough of a difference in the data that I hazarded a guess that Fantasy first novel advances were larger than SF advances. I was wrong. First Novels: Agented vs. Unagented: 58% of our first time novelists had an agent, the other 42% sold the book without an agent, and a high number indicate they got agents right after or during the sale of the book. The range in agented advances is from $1500 to $40,000 The median agented advance is $6000 (the average is $7500) The range in unagented advances is from $0 to $15000 The median unagented advance is $3500 (the average is $4051) These figures have noticeable differences any way you look at them. Not having an agent looks to cost one well more than the agent’s percentage on average, and certainly most of the higher ranging figures come from people with agents. note: Geoff Landis points out that the reverse may be true, agents may not choose to represent clients with lower advances. Hardcover vs Trade Paperback or Mass Market for First Novels Hardcover advances had a median of $5000 Paperback advances had a median of $5000 Careers When I initially created the survey I added fields asking what the last novel the author in question got for an advance, as well as how many books they had sold, and how many years they’d been selling books. I was curious to see if the data would reveal any certain trends over time. 89 authors in this survey have sold more than one book. 47% answered the survey saying they were ‘full time writers’. Here is how that data breaks down: The range was from $0-$600,000 for an advance on their latest novel. The median advance for the multiply published is $12,500. Broken down by Fantasy and SF The range in last Fantasy novel advances is from $1000 to $600,000. The median novel advance is $15,000 for Fantasy The range in Science Fiction novel advances is from $0 to $45,000. The median novel advance is $12,500 for SF. Fantasy novels seem to breakout into higher sums. Broken down by Agented vs. Unagented: 16% of our authors with multiple books sold over multiple years had no agent. The range in agented advances is from $1000 to $600,000 The median agented advance is $12500 The range in unagented advances is from $0 to $21,500 The median unagented advance is $7250 These figures have noticeable differences across the board. Not having an agent looks to cost one well more than the agent’s percentage on average, and certainly most of the higher ranging figures come from people with agents. note: Geoff Landis points out that the reverse may be true, agents may not choose to represent clients with lower advances. Hardcover vs Trade Paperback or Mass Market for Multiple Novelist Hardcover advances had a median of $15,000 Paperback advances had a median of $10,000 Summary: The typical advance for a first novel is $5000. The typical advance for later novels, after a typical number of 5-7 years and 5-7 books is $12,500. Having an agent at any point increases your advance. There is some slight correlation between number of books and number of years spent writing as represented in the 5-12.5 thousand dollar advance shift of an average of 5-7 years. Charting individual author’s progressions, which I will not release to keep anonymity, reveals a large number of upward lines at varying degrees of steepness for advances, some downward slides. Some authors noted that they’d gotten large advances in the 90s but were being paid less now. http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2005/10/05/author-advance-survey-version-20/ Jul 23 07, 2:09 PM

queproblema

"Rowling had Harry Potter books out for years before they hit mainstream and she actually made a huge profit." Brian, do you have a reference for that? Jul 23 07, 8:08 PM

lanfranco

There can't be a reference for that. Rowling's first Harry Potter book (her first book ever) was published in the U.K. in June of 1997. Within six months, it had won awards, and it was published in the U.S. in October of '98. The books have been successful for almost ten years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling Jul 23 07, 8:22 PM

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