I am just curious but say if a book has a cover price of say 19.95 what percentage would the author most likely get from that?

Once the overhead is met, it's about half. With a big name author, he may get more or with a newbie, he may get less.

quote:

Originally posted by wasbeeman:
Once the overhead is met, it's about half. With a big name author, he may get more or with a newbie, he may get less.

I thought that it was much, much lower that that. But maybe I misunderstood your answer?

I think this should be posted in the book forum. There is at least one author who regularly posts there.

I could be wrong --it WILL NOT be the first time in 2010--but I'm talking about net profit and I'm sure there are all sorts of monetary gymnastics performed to charge stuff "to the book".

It depends on the author, subject matter and publishing house. If it's a novel from a well known author then the author can get a good deal but if you're talking about hunting books from anyone except the very top authors then it's nowhere near as much as has been mentioned.

The standard offer from hunting publishers for at least the first few titles is 10% of the first 1000 copies. If the author wants more than that, he has to buy copies of his own book as a discounted price and then attend the shows to sell signed copies etc..... which is why you see so many of 'em doing it.

Nowadays, it's a much better proposition to go the ebook route or use someone like www.lulu.com where the author gets something in the region of 80% of every sale.......forever.