Understanding Advances

Just a small lesson today on advances in traditional publishing.

If you sign with a traditional publisher for a traditional print run, you will hear the term "advance" come into the conversation. This is simply the money that the publisher pays to the author for the rights to publish his or her book. Depending on the publisher, line, etc., that advance can really vary in terms of the amount.

This advance is a "prediction" on what the publisher thinks this book is worth and will sell. The number is based on a lot of different algorithms the marketing departments have put together on that type of book. The publisher has looked at trends on similar books (comps) and have calculated that figure. It isn't just some fixed number they have created (although many will think it sounds like that).

After you have sold through your advance, now you are looking at earning royalties on that book. So, let's say you sold your book for $10,000. That money is given to you up front (I'll explain splits here in a just a second). Once you have sold $10,000 in sales (after all of the cuts for publishers, books not sold, etc.) the second portion of your contract comes into play with those royalties. These have different percentages based on those initial negotiations you or your agent made when you signed that contract. This could be for foreign copies, large print, audio books, film rights and so forth.

That advance can also be split in various different combinations. This could include on delivery of proposals, full manuscripts, signing of contracts and so forth. So, let's go back to that $10,000 advance and look at a potential split:

• $2000 on signing of the contract
• $4000 on delivery of a partial 
• $4000 on delivery of the final draft

If you are someone who is working in self-publishing, you obviously won't have an advance. In cases of many digital only publishers, there won't be an advance but just a split of percentage of sales once that book is sold.

Hope that helps!!!!!