Earn more royalties

Major publishers typically pay authors a recoupable advance, plus a pre-

determined royalty on book sales as compensation. Writers who self-publish

their books, however, must cover all their project’s development, printing,

distribution, and marketing costs out-of-pocket. The profit potential, how-

ever, can be significantly greater.

Instead of receiving a 25-cent, 50-cent, or even a dollar royalty for each copy

of your book sold, a self-published author can earn 40 to 60 percent of the

book’s cover price and sometimes even more. So, if your book sells for $15

per copy and you sell just 1,000 copies, the profit is between $6,000 and

$9,000.

Conversely, if you’re an author whose book is published by a major publish-

ing house, you earn only a 25-cent royalty per book. If that book only sells

1,000 copies, your earnings are a mere $250. As initial sales are generated

from your book, you potentially have to repay your outstanding advance to

the publisher. (If the book doesn’t sell, however, the advance doesn’t need to

be repaid.) Even if that’s been done, your literary agent often takes between

15 and 20 percent of your earnings as his commission (see the following sec-

tion, “Save money without a literary agent”). If the major publishing house

sells tens of thousands of copies of your book, as the author, you stand to

earn a decent income. This, however, doesn’t always happen.

Another benefit to self-publishing is that you don’t have to wait three to six

months to receive royalty checks from the publisher. Authors who have their

book published by a major publishing house often have to wait for the money

they’ve earned, but self-published authors tend to be paid a lot faster, espe-

cially on copies of the book they sell directly to customers. Self-published

authors also aren’t subject to a withholding of royalties as a reserve against

returns for up to six additional months