Advances
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?
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.
I love her blog. It’s always so informative. Thanks for the advance info.
Oh, I’ve devoured all of these as well. Love them!
Awesome info! Hopefully I’ll be needing to retain some of it. ;)
Thanks, Caro!
I’ve learned so much by following Kristen’s blog. Thanks for posting!
“Advances”–a title which assuredly brings hits to your blog! I’d love to have one, myself, someday.
Such an interesting post, Caroline! I’ve missed your wisdom. :-)
Kristen’s blog is so full of information and wonderful gems of advice. Thanks for sharing this!