{"id":336,"date":"2017-10-14T17:21:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-14T17:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mckpublish.com\/?p=336"},"modified":"2020-01-23T17:23:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T17:23:47","slug":"what-ever-happened-to-my-author-advance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/14\/what-ever-happened-to-my-author-advance\/","title":{"rendered":"What ever happened to my Author Advance??"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is a lingering feeling that authors must somehow get paid really well.\u00a0 This is reinforced by some news article or movie clips that show authors getting these amazing big checks were are an “advance” on their upcoming book.\u00a0 So what is that? and why don’t I get one of those??<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 An advance is exactly what it sounds like, a payment in advance of you actually earning any money.\u00a0 Basically, there are times when a publishing house may want to publish a certain person’s book.\u00a0 Perhaps they were famous.\u00a0 Perhaps they had a unique experience that everyone would want to read about.\u00a0 In that case, the publishers are so interested in getting the exclusive rights to that book that they are willing to offer the author advance money.\u00a0 This idea behind this is that the author will take the advance money to pay for their living expenses for a month or two, while they hole up somewhere (a hotel, a cabin, etc) and do the actual writing of the book (…or even better, doing some talking with a ghostwriter who is holed up with you and does the actual writing.)\u00a0 After a couple of months the book is finished.\u00a0 The publisher get it out and the royalties come pouring in.\u00a0 Everyone wins. <\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So why doesn’t this seem to happen so often anymore?\u00a0 Quite frankly, there were some issues with the system.\u00a0 First off, some of the publishers found out that giving an advance to someone doesn’t always get you a book.\u00a0 One\u00a0 publishing house lamented that they offered an individual $10,000 as an advance for what they thought would be a great book.\u00a0 However, the author produced a work that was extremely short and disappointing.\u00a0 The pushing house tried to get the author to rewrite it, but he wouldn’t – unless he got an additional $10,000.\u00a0 They didn’t go for it, and the book was never printed.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Secondly, some authors don’t seem to understand that the advance is not a salary or payment for writing the book.\u00a0 It is a loan drawn against the royalties that would eventually be due.\u00a0 Suppose that an author (let’s call him Bob) gets an advance of $10,000 for his book on dog breeds of North America in January.\u00a0 The publisher get the manuscript that Bob wrote 2 months later and every one is happy.\u00a0 The book is published on June 1, and the royalties start to come in.\u00a0 Bob gets excited to get his first royalty check, but it never comes.\u00a0 After 3 months he called the company.\u00a0 The publishing house tells him, “Well, so far you have earned $600 in royalties, but your advance was for $10,000, so you still owe us $9,400 before you will get a royalty check.”<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bob’s shock is evident.\u00a0 He “owes” the publishing company $9,400??\u00a0 How did that happen?\u00a0 He didn’t understand that the advance was a loan that would be paid first before he got to receive any more royalty payments. He though it was payment for writing the book, and he spend it already.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One year passes for our author.\u00a0 At the end of that time, the publishing company decides to stop promoting the book.\u00a0 (Most profits are made in the first year.)\u00a0 They send Bob a ‘settlement’ statement, which noted that Bob had earned royalties of $8,750 for the year, and he needed to pay back $1,250 that he was ‘overpaid’ in the advance.\u00a0 Ouch.\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This was a successful book.\u00a0 It made the author $8,750.\u00a0 So why did he end up feeling like it was a failure and he owed more money?\u00a0 It was because he was paid “in advance” of the royalties coming in.\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Does this happen in every case?\u00a0 Certainly not.\u00a0 The terms of the advance – including whether you will need to pay it back in the event that you don’t reach that amount in sales – are all shrouded in fine print.\u00a0 Another reason to deal with a reputable company and understand the agreement well before agreeing to move forward!<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No one can predict the future and no one knows which books will sell.\u00a0 An advance can be a helpful thing if it get the author enough time to complete the writing, but it comes at the risk of robbing them of the joy afterward of getting royalties that come in when their book is published.\u00a0 McKinney Publishing has decided not to offer advance payments at this time.\u00a0 We would like our authors to have the full joy at the right time, when the work is completed and the royalties come in.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is a lingering feeling that authors must somehow get paid really well.\u00a0 This is reinforced by some news article or movie clips that show authors getting these amazing big checks were are an “advance” on their upcoming book.\u00a0 So what is that? and why don’t I get one of those?? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 An advance… Read More »What ever happened to my Author Advance??<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mckpublish.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}