For today’s Friday Forecast I want to talk about money. A lot of people are disillusioned about how much *the majority* of writers make. What’s a typical advance? Do novelists live off their writing? What the heck is a “nice” deal and why is it different than a “good” deal?
All good questions. And here are you your answers.
For whatever reason–I’m guessing it’s decorum–the publishing industry has broken advances into categories:
A “nice deal” is defined as any advance equaling $49,000 and under (ex. Joy Preble’s Spark)
A “very nice deal’”is between $50,000 and $99,000 (ex. StarLit Productions’ The Break Up Code)
A “good deal” is $100,000 to $250,000 (ex. Lindsey Leavitt’s Princess for Hire)
A “significant deal” is $251,000 to $499,000 (can’t think of one right now)
And…A ‘major deal’ is $500,000 and up (ex. Anna Godbersen’s The Luxe)
(For some humorous descriptions of how these advance categories should really be labeled check this out.)
Most books advances for first novels fall between $5,000-8,000. Nice deals make up almost 50% of advances. The median advance is about $5,000. Now remember that an advance is not a lump sum. The publisher will break it up into parts usually. At least some of it is paid on publication. Your agent can try to weight the money as heavily toward the front end as possible, but the insistence of publishers on splitting up the advance has become increasingly heavy-handed.
Don’t quit your day job. Until you’ve written more than one book and have begun to earn royalties, do not depend on your writing. Think about this: Ally Carter, author of the Gallagher Girl series just quit her day job this winter and she has two bestsellers, a couple adult books out there, a movie deal with Disney, and another couple books already bought up unwritten.
I always find it funny when people ask, “So, if your book sells are you still going to law school?” Yes, Yes, Yes! I am still going to law school. I am still completely law school. No matter what. Make the time to write. Work it into your life, but if you force yourself to depend on it, your muse might be too stressed out to appear.
Status: Later today I will be posting the artwork that goes with SCOUT. I still have not seen it yet, but my fingers are crossed an my hopes are high. Earlier this morning I finished New Moon. I guess it’s time to get Eclipse. I ordered in Story of Girl by Sara Zarr at the library, too. Now, I’m working on a synopsis for SCOUT, which will be part of a proposal package should we get a request for more materials.
1 Comment
July 25, 2008 at 9:00 pm
[...] Want to read other Friday Forecasts? Check out Honey, I Shrunk Our Audience and Let’s Talk Money. [...]