How Much Can an Author Expect to Make on Their Book?
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I can’t tell you how many times I Googled “how much money does an author make per book” before getting a book deal, myself.
It’s so intriguing, and such a black hole.
It also varies tremendously—which is what I read over and over during my own Google searches.
But I get how infuriating it is to expect Google to churn up an answer only to learn that there is no answer.
So in late 2021, I decided to gather and analyze the data for myself. Taking into consideration over 1400 author responses (1469 to be exact), here is what I found. I’ll cut right to the chase.
The average advance for a debut author is $57,000
This is across genres and publisher types. (If you want to get the full rundown of my data and sources, you can watch the free webinar I did on this subject here. Please watch this before you email me asking me where the data came from—I go into great detail in this video.)
For nondebut, it was slightly higher—$59,000.
Now, average and median are different, and both are useful to know. The median advance for authors was $25,000 regardless of whether it was the author’s debut (first book published) or not. That means half of authors selling their books made advances under $25,000, and half of them made advances over $25,000.
Is this more or less than you expected? Let’s break it down by category based on the type of book you’re writing.
Average advances by major categories were…
Adult Fiction: $65,908
Memoir: $90,686
Young Adult: $50,718
Middle Grade: $35,406
These numbers varied dramatically based on whether the publisher who published the book was a “Big 5” publisher or not, and you can get the full, very detailed breakdown of this data by checking out the webinar I did here.
But what do we mean by “advances”?
Everything you need to know about book advances
When people tell you what their book “sold for,” what they mean is, what the size of their advance was.
An advance is money that you’re paid or guaranteed upon the sale of your book to a publisher. It’s called an advance because it’s an advance on your royalties—this money will come out of money that your book earns once it hits the shelves.
The nice thing, however, about an advance, is that if your book doesn’t sell as well as hoped and therefore your royalties don’t cover your advance, you still get to keep it. The advance is yours no matter what happens.
Since many books don’t make a profit, especially for first time authors, this is a very good thing for you as the writer.
Advances in the United States are typically paid out in three equal installments:
You’ll get the first installment upon the signing of your contract.
The second installment when your book manuscript is totally completed and goes to production (after your editor gives it their stamp of approval—which is typically 3-12 months after the signing of the contract).
The third installment when it’s published.
So, if your book sells for $90,000, you’d get:
→ 30,000 when you sign the contract
→ 30,000 when your editor decides the book is done and sends the draft to production
→ 30,000 when it hits bookstore shelves
Again, this money is an advance on your royalties, but you won’t ever have to pay it back (assuming you actually write and deliver the book, i.e. fulfill your obligation under the contract).
Sometimes I am asked if writers should hire a lawyer to look over these agreements, even if the agent is negotiating them.
I haven’t known anyone to do that, but also, I’m not BFFs with Stephen King. Maybe at some level, lawyers do become involved, but I typically tell people their literary agent can handle it (more on agents in a moment).
Technically I used to be a lawyer, so you’d think I’d be a bit more pro-lawyer, but these contracts are so boilerplate that I don’t think it’s worth your money unless you have an especially giant advance or you’re signing with a publisher who isn’t one of the “Big 5”—Penguin/Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins (Mine), Simon & Schuster, or Macmillan.
Where does the literary agent come in?
You almost certainly will need a literary agent to sell to a publisher, so there really isn’t a way around this—but also, great agents more than earn their commission! (You can read my post on how to get a literary agent here.)
Agents take care of the hard parts so you can write, and they negotiate on your behalf. In the United States, it’s standard for literary agents to make 15% commission on your domestic sales and 20% on your foreign sales.
To continue our $90,000 advance example, this means that those 3 payouts would actually be reduced by 15%—so each would be $25,500.
For a foreign advance, it would be reduced by 20%. So if Germany buys your book for $5,000, you’d get $4,000. (If you’re curious why the percentage is greater for foreign rights, it’s because usually your agent has worked with a local agent abroad to sell your book to a publisher in that country: your agent and the other agent each get 10% of your payout, totaling 20% that you hand over.)
How much will I make per book sold?
Often people ask me, “Do you make the same amount regardless of where I buy the book?”
No! So thank you for asking. If you want to bank good karma now, start buying from independent bookstores like Indiebound, instead of Amazon.
There are many reasons why, and this article does a great job of explaining them, but for our purposes at the moment, let’s focus on how much an author can expect to make on their book.
A standard (but slightly simplified) breakdown for a publishing contract with a major publisher looks something like this:
→ 10% of hardback sale price up to 5,000; 12.5% from 5,001 to 10,000; 15% after
→ 7.5% of paperback sale price
→ 25% of digital versions
Amazon discounts books tremendously, meaning that you, as the author, are getting a percentage of a smaller sales price. You make less.
That’s the simple version.
Be prepared to promote yourself like whoa
While your publisher will do its best to support you, you are going to have to learn to be your own biggest cheerleader. This can be hard for writers who are often introverted and socially anxious (hello).
But no one cares about your book’s interest as much as you do—and so it is largely going to fall on your shoulders to market it. Your marketing strategy plays into how much money you can expect to make on your book.
Be prepared to yell from the rooftops about its publication and consider enlisting friends or fellow writers as a team to help you promote it.
Publishers these days don’t pay for book tours, but you can cover your own—that’s what I did with When You Read This and what I was prepared to do with Privilege before COVID hit and everything was canceled.
Your book advance you’ll keep no matter what (as long as you write the book), but it behooves you and your publisher, both, for your book to sell well—and it will make your next book easier to sell.
I hope you found this post detailing how much authors make per book helpful. Again, if you want much more data on this topic, including breakdowns by fiction genre, you can catch my free seminar and watch on your own schedule here.