How much money does a writer make?
Believe it or not, that’s up to you, the reader. Most authors are paid a percentage of the cover price for each copy of the book sold. When you buy a book, you’re helping pay that author’s salary (unless you buy from a used book store or buy one of the used copies from Amazon — then the writer makes no money at all). Authors do generally get paid an advance based on how many books the publisher thinks might sell, but it’s an advance against royalties, so it still comes down to how many books sell. A royalty rate is generally in the neighborhood of 6-10 percent, depending on the kind of book, the publisher, how big a bestseller the author is (sometimes the royalty rate goes up after a certain threshold, like after 100,000 copies).If you want to know how much money I make, well, to find that out, you’d have to volunteer to do my taxes for me (and didn’t your mother teach you it was rude to ask how much money someone makes?).
Believe it or not, that’s up to you, the reader. Most authors are paid a percentage of the cover price for each copy of the book sold. When you buy a book, you’re helping pay that author’s salary (unless you buy from a used book store or buy one of the used copies from Amazon — then the writer makes no money at all). Authors do generally get paid an advance based on how many books the publisher thinks might sell, but it’s an advance against royalties, so it still comes down to how many books sell. A royalty rate is generally in the neighborhood of 6-10 percent, depending on the kind of book, the publisher, how big a bestseller the author is (sometimes the royalty rate goes up after a certain threshold, like after 100,000 copies). If you want to know how much money I make, well, to find that out, you’d have to volunteer to do my taxes for me (and didn’t your mother teach you it was rude to ask how much money someone makes?).
