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Under standard royalties, an author gets roughly 20 to 30\% of the publisher’s revenue for a hardcover, 15\% for a trade paperback, and 25\% for an eBook. So, very roughly, every hardcover release that earns out brings the author something like 25\% of all revenue earned by the publisher.
How much money do you make if you have a best selling book?
Given the royalties of a standard contract, an author selling 20,000 books priced at $25 would earn $65,625 the first week on the “New York Times” best-seller list. This is not quite the millions superstar authors bank, but if the book continues to sell, these earnings add up to an impressive income.
Authors don’t get a salary, and once an author has written a book it can be traditionally published – or the author can self-publish. Traditionally under the contract the author will be paid an up-front sum, known as an ‘advance’ (advances are generally modest these days).
How much do authors get paid for each book sold?
The percentage may rise with the number of copies sold, such as 10 percent for the first 5,000 books sold and 12.5 percent for subsequent sales. With a 10 percent royalty, an author who writes a book that costs $10 and sells 20,000 copies makes $20,000.
How many copies does a book sell each year?
In reality, most books sell fewer than 5,000 copies. The $5,000 royalty received from these sales does not provide income for even a single year, yet many authors spend years writing one book.
Do self-published books that are sold online make more money?
While self-published books sold online only are likely to sell half as many copies, the author gets more money per copy, making them as good a bet for income (as per the Author Earnings blog, for example). However, you’re asking about copies sold. Let’s say that it’s a novel, published in mass market paperback and ebook.
Amazon Kindle Desktop Publishing (KDP) paid over $249.9 million in 2019 to various authors who sell digital versions of their books for Amazon Kindle and other digital e-book devices. However, both these figures also don’t take into account the black and grey market for books.