What Authors Should Know about Advances

An advance is a topic brought up a lot in the publishing industry both by the publisher and by the author. Is it a thing of the past? No? Are they more selective on who is getting an advance? Yes. Do you feel you should be getting an advance? Probably. My question is, who the heck are you to deserve an advance? 

I say that not to mock but to make you think. Do you really know what an advance is? It’s a loan. A loan based on anticipated sales. If you are a first time author you haven’t proven you can sell anything. Now if you are a celebrity then that is something different all together. People are buying your name. Publishers know you will sell. 

Over the past year of book touring I have been asked numerous times if Passionate Writer Publishing, the company I work for, gives advances. All I can speak for is myself. I am on book number seven and no I have not been given an advance. But, I don’t want one either. So to the people who keep sending emails to the Publisher saying, “Omegia guaranteed I would get an advance.” Please stop the madness! Your book needs to be accepted first. Sorry, got a little off track there. I don’t want an advance for the reason I stated above. Advance=loan. 

Let me run some numbers for you.  Let’s say Publisher X really sees something in your work and gives you a $7000 Loan Advance. Advances are paid back off your royalties. I will go with the higher median and go with 15%. Royalties are based off net profit. Oh, you thought it was the actual list price of the book? No, someone has to pay a print charge and then those distribution discounts (see previous blog on book pricing for this). An average $15.00 book net profit is around $3.50. 15% of $3.50 is about $0.53. The author will need to sell 13,207 books! And that is just to pay back the publisher. If the author does not sell the promised amount of books within a certain time frame then Publisher X will be seeking legal action—meaning they can garnish you day job checks. I know three authors personally this has happened to. Two were published under Simone and Schuster and one is still under St. Martin’s Press. Yes, they may even drop you as an author.

You still want that advance? I would rather focus on selling books than losing my mind over how to make back money owned. From experience, the 15+ events I attended this year alone, it is much easier to sell books with no pressure than knowing you have to sell a certain amount. Authors under pressure come off like a used car salesman. On my last event at the Miami International Book Fair, a lady was in the booth next to me selling books via name your price. I watched her for hours and not one person took her up on her offer. I on the other hand sold over 40 of my titles and that is with me pushing other authors, under Passionate Writer Publishing’s, titles.

In the end if you are dead set on the advance know exactly what it is you are asking for. Also, make sure your book is worthy of it. 

Until Next Time,

Omegia Keeys

Rise and Fall of a Track Star

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Is My Book Priced Too High

Publishing and Writing Tips from the Mind of Omegia

Is My Book Priced Too High?

Blog Origination: Biweekly Tips of me Guest Blogging on The Authors and  Readers Book Corner

From the message board forums to meeting authors face to face I have heard it all when it comes to book prices. In most cases the author really does not have a legitimate complaint and others, as with the case with my first release, should be screaming at the top of their lungs. There are many contributing factors when determining book pricing. Authors should know what they are prior to seeking publishing. Don’t find out the hard way like I did my first go round. Now on my 6^th book and from being a Publishing Consultant I know the ins and outs.

Prices should be set to allow room for distribution discounts (normally 40%-55%), print cost (determined by the page count), handling fee (yes unfortunately you must pay this too) royalties, and the publishers cut. If you are self-publishing you can eliminate the publishers cut. I will use one of my books as an example. Can You Keep a Secret? is priced at $15.00. Well the online booksellers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) get a 40%-55% discount. I will go with the low end of 40% which means they get the book for $9. Print charge can be between $4-$6, calculated by the length of the book. Toss in $1 for the handling fee and this is what I am left with getting 15% of about $3.50. On the other hand if I want to purchase my book to sell at events I normally get a 40% discount (which is standard from publishers) unless I buy large quantities. I get my book for $9 and sell it for $15 at events and pocket $6 per book. 

Now some of you may shake your head and say no way you want a publisher, right. Well hey I could have paid about $1500-$3000 to have a quality self-published book. By quality I mean ISBN, Editing, Formatting, Cover Design, ect. All I would be eliminating is the publisher’s cut when it pertains to online sales or brick and mortar sales. After a year of pushing the books myself I would be lucky if I made my money back to even think about profiting. I will take my $6 per books I purchase as well as my 15% of $3.50, thank you. Last check I have sold almost 2500 copies of this novel since its release. 

I will take it a step further and apply the same equation to my first book, Passionate Playmates published by Publish America. The book was barely 100 pages and was set to $16.95. I can’t tell you what I got off my meager 8% royalties with them because with the high price the book never sold from bookstores. When I purchased my books to sell from them I barely received a 30% discount from them and I always order around 30 books or more, and they were very crafty to charge a shipping charge per book. Basically when I sold all 30 books I was still in the hole. On first look I thought I would have gotten more because of the higher price of the book but no one will buy it if it is that high. 

On the other hand I have heard people who assume there books should be extremely low. $7-$8 bucks for a book over 300 pages or $15 for a 600 pager. Well unless you are doing over 1000 books print run it is simply not going to happen. Matter of fact I have one of friend’s, who is published under Simon and Schuster, book sitting in front of me. Her book is only 2 pages longer than my Can You Keep a Secret, And guess what? It’s set at the same price of $15 just like mine. So even though I am with a smaller publisher the numbers are still the same. So before you jump the gun and say your publisher has your book price set too high make sure you do your research on books in the same genre and length. It may not be the price hindering your sales.

Until Next Time,

Omegia Keeys

http://fromthemindofomegia.blogspot.com/