Book money

How the finances work, plus my weekly shareables: a magical horn, a resurrected podcast, and the saga of Connor and the urn

Photo by Money Knack on Unsplash

This week marked another milestone in DOGLAND—I sent off my changes to what in the publishing world is called the first pass. That’s the first version of the book that has actually been typeset, with the pages designed. It’s a real glimpse of what the book will look like when it comes out, and it’s a huge thrill.

This is at least the third round of edits on this book, so we’re mostly tidying up—making small word changes, checking spelling and punctuation, that sort of thing. But in a full-length book, there’s a LOT to tidy up. The program we use keeps track of the number of changes. When I sent it back the other day, I had made 324 fixes.

Writing a book will wear your ass out.

(This seems a good time to remind you to BUY THE BOOK that will result from all that effort. Preorder from Park Road Books and I’ll inscribe it however you like; preorder from other outlets if you’d prefer; but preorder if you please. Every preordered copy helps expand the scope of my book tour, among other things. Thank you for your support.)

Another pleasant thing that happened just before the start of the new year: a nice check from the publisher dropped into our bank account.

Folks always want to know how money works in book publishing, so I thought I’d do a brief rundown.

The one thing I’m not going to do is tell you how much I got paid to write DOGLAND ... although part of me thinks I should. I’m in favor of more transparency in general when it comes to money, because there’s always a power imbalance between employers and employees—I know what I’m getting paid, but the employer knows what everybody is getting paid. Having an agent levels things out a bit—a good agent will know the proper range an author should get for a book deal. I’m declining to share the amount because the publisher would probably prefer I didn’t, but mostly because I’m part of a household and we generally keep those things to ourselves. I’ll just say I was happy with how the deal worked out.

The details of book deals differ among publishers. But in general terms, here’s how it works. There are two forms of payment: the advance, or the amount you agree to up front, and the royalties, or the extra money you get if the book hits certain sales markers.

One thing to be clear about: In the vast majority of cases, the advance is all the author ever gets. Most books don’t sell enough copies to “earn out,” which means to hit the sales trigger for royalties. So if you are ever in line for a book deal, try to get as much up front as possible. (This also puts more of the publisher’s skin in the game, so they’re more likely to spend money on publicity and such.)

In most cases, the advance is spread out over several payments. Again, deals differ, but both of my book contracts have the same split:

—One chunk when I signed the contract.

—A second chunk when the book is “viable,” which as my editor explained one time: far enough along that if I got hit by a truck tomorrow, they could still publish it. Basically, completely written and deep into edits. (This was the chunk we got a couple weeks ago.)

—A third chunk when the book comes out (in the case of DOGLAND, April 23).

—And the final chunk when the paperback comes out (usually a year after the hardcover).

Most publishers have formulas for the percentage you get paid for each chunk, but those percentages are negotiable—I asked for more money up front for DOGLAND because there was a lot of traveling involved and I wanted to cover expenses.

Here’s the thing that becomes clear once you start doing the math: It’s very hard to just write books for a living. I got my first payment for DOGLAND in January 2020, and I won’t get the last payment until sometime in spring 2025. So it’ll be more than five years from first payment to last. (I really should write faster.)

There’s extra money that might come in, depending on the book: you might do the audiobook, or publishers might buy the rights for other countries, or somebody might buy the movie rights. All wonderful things! But there’s no guarantee any of them will happen.

I do know a couple of authors whose books earned out, so they get a nice royalty check every quarter. But no author I know expects or depends on that. The real hope is that the advance gets bigger with every book. That’s mostly dependent on the book-buying public (hint, hint).

Budding writers ask me about this stuff a lot, and I get it—it’s not always clear how the business works. But let me say this gently: Don’t worry about all the riches you’re going to make until you’ve done something that might earn you some riches. It’s a magical thing, to turn words into money. But, as I remind myself every time I sit down at the keyboard, you have to make the magic first.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My weekly for WFAE was about Ed Crutchfield, one of the business and civic leaders who shaped modern Charlotte.

2. More than 30 years ago, I bought a saxophone for 50 bucks at a yard sale in Augusta, Georgia. I intended to learn how to play but never did. Maybe 10 years later, I took it to a music shop to sell it. I got WAY more money for it than I expected. Now I’m wondering if it was a Selmer Mark VI, which I learned from this story is the holy grail of horns for sax players. (New Yorker)

3. Congrats to my friend Anna Sale for finding a new home for her brilliant podcast DEATH, SEX AND MONEY. (From Somewhere with Anna Sale)

4. Speaking of podcasts, a new find: SOUL MUSIC, a BBC podcast that delves into songs that have powerful emotional impact. Right in my wheelhouse.

5. DOG NEWS: From now until DOGLAND comes out, I’m devoting this slot to dog stories. This week: A beautiful story from Charlie Warzel about resurrecting his beloved dog through the photos on his phone. (The Atlantic)

6. The thing I could not stop laughing at this week: Connor, the dude in Alabama who got stuck in an urn. There is something so beautiful about hearing a guy with that particular accent cuss like a sailor. (The Messenger)

7. If you want more on Connor, the Shutdown Fullcast spends a good 40 minutes talking about him at the start of their episode on the college football national championship. This was the correct order of business. I nearly did multiple spit takes.

8. Austin Kleon’s cure for creative issues, paraphrasing Laurence Olivier: Why don’t you try typing? (Austin Kleon’s Substack)

9. We just finished ripping through all eight episodes of FOOL ME ONCE, a Netflix series based on a Harlan Coben novel about a woman who thinks she spots her murdered husband on a nanny cam, and unravels bigger mysteries along the way. It wasn’t my favorite series we’ve ever watched, but I will admit I did not come even close to solving the case in advance.

10. The other day I was in the Giddy Goat here in Charlotte, working on those book edits, and the sound system played Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie”—by which I mean, the version of “Valerie” I love. The one I hear most is the uptempo version she did on Mark Ronson’s album VERSION. It’s fine. But the slow version, featured on the deluxe edition of her album BACK TO BLACK—that’s the one that has my heart. It’s got such a beautiful melancholy to it, which I guess is also a way to describe Amy Winehouse herself. I wish she was still with us. What a voice.
    

    
    

    Have a great week, everybody.