I know most novelists can't make a living from it . . . I was just wondering what would your average novel, say in the thriller genre, make for the writer? How many copies would they print? How do they decide how many to print? Do you get a flat fee or is it based on how many copies you sell?

Well, off the top of my head, and these are really, really loose figures that I'm kind of making up as I go along and any book trade people reading this are at liberty to tell me I'm wrong...

The basic payment for authors is a percentage of cover price, called a royalty, which varies by complicated formulae depending on the binding, and how much the publisher got for it from the bookseller. Say 10% for the hardback, 7½% for the paperback, and varying kinds of less for books sold at 'high discount' which is to the big buyers like Tesco and Waterstones and wholesalers.

However, when the contract is signed, the publisher pays the writer an advance on the expected royalties of the first hardback (or handsome big trade paperback) and paperback (or smaller mass-market paperback) editions: this is the figure that makes the headlines. If the book doesn't earn this much you don't have to give it back, and it's paid in three or four stages, from when the contract's signed to the paperback publication.

The average advance for a first novel is £5-10,000. The chances are you won't actually get any royalties on top of that, unless it sells much better than expected, or the deal includes the book's subsidiary and translation rights, and they've sold more than they expected of them. Very often they'll offer a two-book deal, for more money, but again, only coming through in up to eight stages. Big advances garner headlines, but it's not good for you to get a huge advance that doesn't come anywhere near earning out. They may re-think things for the paperback and throw lots of money at publicity and marketing (Londonstani is an example) but the risk is that they won't want to throw good money after bad, and certainly won't back your second book. These days, because of Neilson BookScan, no one can hide their sales figures.

The average literary debut novel sells 4-800 in hardback, and perhaps - I dunno - 2-5,000 in paperback? Towards the commercial end of the spectrum, they might not expect to sell more in hardback, if they do one at all, but would expect to sell - I dunno - 15-20,000 in pb?

Six months before publication they start showing it to the big buyers, and tell them about the publicity campaign as well. They decide how many to print as late as possible, about six weeks before publication, when they've got the big orders in. Sometimes they don't print enough to cover the orders that come in after that, which is when you'll hear an author proudly say that it 'reprinted on publication'. They don't want to tie cash up in a print bill unless they can sell them quickly, and warehousing is an overhead, on the other hand the unit cost of each book drops sharply (i.e. the profit margin rises) as the print run gets bigger, which is why production directors who are good at the sums are so important...

The killer is that a publisher needs to sell more with each book you write. If - as happened to a friend - you 'stick' at selling 90,000 in paperback with a big commercial publisher, after your 4th or 5th novel, you won't be able to find a publisher for your sixth at all...

Emma

That's really useful - thanks Emma!

Just one question: how come you need to sell more with each novel?

'Twas not always thus, but now that publishers are all owned by bigger corporate entities, they have be seen (by their accountants, if by no one else) to be growing all the time, because otherwise they must be dying, in capitalist terms. And if they're publishing your book, they're not publishing someone who may be the Next Big Thing...

If you hear people talking about the problems of the mid-list author, that's what they mean: you're not new and shiny, you're not their established bestseller, and they no longer expect you to 'break out' and find a whole new audience beyond your existing fans. My agent prefers to call someone in that position a mid-career author, and it's a very common and very painful position to be in, when you thought you were established as a writer by then.

Very occasionally a clever agent can persuade a different big publisher that the other lot have marketed you all wrong, and it works a treat - Ellis Peters was very mid-list with (I think) Macmillan before a brash new young publisher called Headline spotted the potential of a monk - for heaven's sake! - in a monastery in 12th century Shropshire...

Another option is that good small independent publishers with much smaller overheads and less demanding parent companies sometimes pick such authors up, and without making tons of money, do a very nice job with the existing readership.

Changing genre sometimes works, but apparently authors have been known to start again with a pseudonym, as a 'debut' author... Turning to non-fiction can work to. But some just give up.

Emma

God, this is depressing, Emma.....

Rosy

Well that is the depressing version, and writers are like farmers - never satisfied. As far as I can see, as long as you never assume that your next book will sell, and for more than your last did, it's okay. But it's certainly dangerous to give up the day job without having a second financial string to your bow.

And to be fair to the friend who was dropped, s/he has nothing against his publisher, says they were incredibly supportive even when Three proved hard to persuade the bookshops to buy, and went on and on trying to get the sales going, and it just didn't work. S/He's just got a really terrific non-fiction deal, though...

Emma

I'm a great example of a mid-list author.
I got above average advances for all three of my HarperCollins novels, but sales were disappointing - though they would have been excellent for a smaller advance.
They dropped me for my fourth book.
Though I have to say - it was mostly my fault they dropped me. If I had done exactly as my editor had said, written the highly commercial book she wanted, they would have kept me; but I had something very specific in mind, which they didn't believe was commercial enough. My agent didn't either, and so - bye-bye.
I've been struggling since then to get my foot back on the ladder, wiser and humbler,. I have two books to sell; the fifth is far more commercial than the fourth and I have a new agent, from New York, representing it in the US.
It's a long and rather sad story, and taught me more about the publishing business than I needed to know!

A very interesting and honest reply, Aruna.

I think that pre-publication that getting a deal is the holy grail and that afterwards everything will be a breeze. Whereas the truth of the matter is that as far as publishers are concerned, we're only as good as our last neilsen bookscan!

Good luck with the new book.

all best

Maria
www.mariamccarthy.co.uk