Thank you for sharing this - it’s so interesting to hear your perspective as a bookseller as well as a writer. Authors are shockingly underpaid given they fuel the industry and publishing salaries are generally low, & staff overworked. I think the cover price (let alone the discount price) of a book in no way reflects the costs of creating and publishing it - sales quantities have to be unrealistically vast for the numbers to stack up. I’m venturing into self-publishing this year which is giving me an even more pointy understanding of publishing finances!!
This is fascinating and thank you so much for spelling it out like this Anna. It’s a bloody joke isn’t it? And not to mention the business of second hand book buying which everyone seems to be doing now. I think there needs to be more awareness of how writers need people to buy their books new as non-writers don’t seem to get this! I haven’t had a royalty statement yet for Sins but assumed it’s because I haven’t yet paid off my advance. Should I be receiving one anyway? Xx
Thank you for sharing this - it’s so interesting to hear your perspective as a bookseller as well as a writer. Authors are shockingly underpaid given they fuel the industry and publishing salaries are generally low, & staff overworked. I think the cover price (let alone the discount price) of a book in no way reflects the costs of creating and publishing it - sales quantities have to be unrealistically vast for the numbers to stack up. I’m venturing into self-publishing this year which is giving me an even more pointy understanding of publishing finances!!
This is fascinating and thank you so much for spelling it out like this Anna. It’s a bloody joke isn’t it? And not to mention the business of second hand book buying which everyone seems to be doing now. I think there needs to be more awareness of how writers need people to buy their books new as non-writers don’t seem to get this! I haven’t had a royalty statement yet for Sins but assumed it’s because I haven’t yet paid off my advance. Should I be receiving one anyway? Xx
This was such an interesting post. I had no idea about how royalties and advances work - so eye opening!