Common myths about making money as an author (Financial literary post #03 part I)
A non-exhaustive list that you can add to in the comments!
Hello and Happy Wednesday!
After a hiatus to discuss other things, I’m returning to the posts relating to “financial literacy” that I started last month. As a refresher:
Post #1 covered how I made money as a writer up to the point that I got a book deal.
Post #2 covered how I made money (or did not make money) as an author from my first book deal on.
Today, I’ll be sharing batch one of common myths about money-making as an author. (I might sprinkle in a few myths that many writers believe, but generally, I’ll be pulling from things I believed myself that turned out to be wrong.)
Without further ado, let’s go.
Common myths about money-making as an author- batch one of…many? (There are a lot of myths out there!)
MYTH 1: Once you get a book deal, you can obtain as many copies of your book as you want
I sort of assumed that once I got a book deal, I’d have my own book on tap; that as long as the amount of books I needed was relatively modest, I could ask my publisher for more copies, free…for life? This isn’t how it works. Each book contract will stipulate how many copies the author receives gratis of their hardcover and paperback, but generally, you’ll get around 12 copies of each, and your literary agent will be sent a similar number. Same goes for audiobooks (which I used to receive around 5-6 copies of, but now everything is digital, and I haven’t been offered so much as a discount code to listen to my own book.) Ditto for your book in translation, except you’ll get less copies. Shipping books internationally is expensive. The most I’ve ever got from a foreign publisher is three copies of my translated book.
Sometimes—especially if you are particularly chummy with your publicist—you might be able to get a box or two of extra books somewhere down the line, but this rarely happens with small publishers, because their overhead is tighter than the bigger houses. Normally, once you’ve gone through your free author copies, you’ll have to purchase copies going forward. You’ll get an author’s discount, but the book is far from free. The best discount I’ve been offered is 50% off retail, but usually, I have to pay something closer to 30% off the book’s original retail price. This is doable for paperbacks, but pretty steep for hardcovers. Plus, you have to pay for your own book’s shipping, as well.
In a perfect world, your book will sell just fine through traditional distribution channels (bookstores, online vendors, audiobooks, airport booksellers, etc.) and bookstores will work with your publisher to make sure they have the appropriate quantity of your books on time for whatever event you’re doing, but do we live in a perfect world? We certainly do not! I’ve personally found it helpful to have at least a dozen copies of my books on hand so if there’s a snaffu with book deliveries for an event I’m doing, or I’m doing something so small that a bookstore won’t participate, I have books to show up with and sell. (I carry a square reader in my wallet for this same reason—it’s a device that allows my phone to charge credit cards without too much fuss.)
Something additional to remember— the books that you, the author, order from your publisher, do not count toward your overall book sales. Some people try to game the system by buying a bunch of their books using their author discount—but this doesn’t work.
MYTH 2: Big Five book deals always mean big money
This point, people might balk at, but I’m going to carry forth. When I started out in publishing, I thought that a Big Five book deal equalled heart-stopping, life-changing money until I got one of those deals myself, and understood on an intimate level how the publishing pay structure works.
Let’s say you get 150K for your debut novel. That is an AWESOME deal. For most people, that is a life changing amount of money! It’s a huge amount of cash that you earned on the power, talent and potential of your own words, and it’s something to celebrate. But there are two things to know about book deal advances before you decide that you are set for life.
1) They are not an annual salary, nor do they represent what you stand to earn for the next few years.
2) Book advances are paid in multiple payments over multiple years and each payment will have two different fees applied, making the total amount you thought you were getting…much less than you thought.
Let’s break these two points down. (Get yourself some comfort food because we’ll be mentioning the IRS.)