33. How much do authors get in royalties?
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This article is from the rec.arts.sf.written FAQ, by Evelyn C. Leeper evelynleeper@geocities.com with numerous contributions by others.
33. How much do authors get in royalties?
Beginners sometimes get 6% on paperbacks, going up to 8% after a
certain threshold figure has been reached (often betweeen 100,000 and
150,000 copies sold).
Established writers, and beginners with tough agents, get 8% on
paperbacks, going up to 10% after the threshold has been reached.
On trade paperbacks, 7.5% is the standard starting place.
On hardcovers, most authors get 10% on the first X number of copies;
12.5% on the next Y number of copies, and 15% after that. For
hardcovers the values of both X and Y are often 5,000 copies.
So, for a typical hardcover priced at US$23.95, the author will get
somewhere between $2.40 and $3.60 on the copy you buy, depending on how
many have already sold. For a typical paperback priced at US$6.99,
the author will get 52.5 cents.
[Provided by Robert J Sawyer [sawyer@sfwriter.com].]
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