Caroline Starr Rose

picture book and middle-grade author

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Advances

8 Comments

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In the days before my book went to auction, I spent a lot of time reading through Kristen Nelson’s Agent 101 series, trying to figure out as much as I could about publishing terminology. For those of you who’ve never read her series, I highly recommend it.

One post in the series was all about advances. Here’s how advances typically work. 

three payments:

1 = at signing the contract
2 = at delivery and acceptance (final round of edits done and your editor has approved your work)
3 = at publication

An advance is really a publishing house investing in your product, buying your invention, whatever metaphor makes most sense to you. Ideally, your product will “earn out” — meaning the publisher will re-coop through sales the advance money paid to you. If that happens, you will earn royalties (a percentage of your publisher’s profit) on each book sold.

Here are a few other posts on advances and earning out:

Rachelle Gardner’s Sell-In Sell-Through, Earn-Out, and Returns
Tobias Buckell’s Author Advance Survey
NYT essay: About that Book Advance…
Kristen Nelson’s Does the Size of the Advance Equate Success?

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Filed Under: publication

Comments

  1. salarsenッ says

    August 27, 2010 at 11:07 am

    Thanks, Caroline. I’m not in the market for this info just yet, but be assured I’ll be back for it. I’ll probably email you too. “;-)

    Enjoy your weekend.

    Reply
  2. Natalie Aguirre says

    August 27, 2010 at 11:15 am

    I love her blog. It’s always so informative. Thanks for the advance info.

    Reply
  3. Elana Johnson says

    August 27, 2010 at 5:43 pm

    Oh, I’ve devoured all of these as well. Love them!

    Reply
  4. Tere Kirkland says

    August 27, 2010 at 7:29 pm

    Awesome info! Hopefully I’ll be needing to retain some of it. 😉

    Thanks, Caro!

    Reply
  5. Elle Strauss says

    August 27, 2010 at 8:38 pm

    I’ve learned so much by following Kristen’s blog. Thanks for posting!

    Reply
  6. Jill says

    August 27, 2010 at 8:46 pm

    “Advances”–a title which assuredly brings hits to your blog! I’d love to have one, myself, someday.

    Reply
  7. Shannon O'Donnell says

    August 29, 2010 at 2:01 am

    Such an interesting post, Caroline! I’ve missed your wisdom. 🙂

    Reply
  8. Sara B. Larson says

    August 31, 2010 at 7:54 pm

    Kristen’s blog is so full of information and wonderful gems of advice. Thanks for sharing this!

    Reply

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