Just touching on this bit. In the US? I haven't seen a new book come out in the last 18 months with a 5.99 price. $6.99 is the low end now. $7.99 is probably 80% of the market and $8.49 for the BFF books.
Thank you <g>!
Which would mean that 10K is probably an advance that you're going to earn out if your first book is published in hardcover/mass market, so 12K would be the better advance, because it means you'd have to have a net mass market sale of 10,500 before you earned out; the publisher is still likely to make money, and there's a better chance you won't earn out.
My tongue being firmly planted in my cheek, at this point. But having said that -- if I were negotiating with a company for a hard/soft deal, and it was clear that this was the case, I'd feel no compunction at all about asking for 12K, using those rudimentary numbers. Using numbers, good, and if you aren't nervous about not having an agent, I would do this.
Obviously, that's a bit more tricky for a straight mass market, where you can see numbers as slow as 9K shipping :/.
For paperback? It's often true in this market that a first book can ship 9-15K. With returns factored in, that's... not a lot of sold books. So there's obviously no leverage with the numbers there (and I wouldn't try using those numbers -- but on the other hand, there probably aren't many editors who want to say "we're only going to sell 4,000 of these after returns", so it's unlikely that the editor will use those numbers either).
But 5K is an advance that many authors fail to earn out. It's probably harder to fail to earn it out than it used to be -- but then again, the low end mass market shipment 15 years ago was probably a 35K laydown (well, for the companies I'm familiar with in that time frame). Now? That would be good.
So... to go right back to things... 5-7,500K for a paperback original is fairly standard first book.
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branchandroot
Re: Mainstream vs. sf
Date: 2004-09-19 01:46 pm (UTC)Thank you <g>!
Which would mean that 10K is probably an advance that you're going to earn out if your first book is published in hardcover/mass market, so 12K would be the better advance, because it means you'd have to have a net mass market sale of 10,500 before you earned out; the publisher is still likely to make money, and there's a better chance you won't earn out.
My tongue being firmly planted in my cheek, at this point. But having said that -- if I were negotiating with a company for a hard/soft deal, and it was clear that this was the case, I'd feel no compunction at all about asking for 12K, using those rudimentary numbers. Using numbers, good, and if you aren't nervous about not having an agent, I would do this.
Obviously, that's a bit more tricky for a straight mass market, where you can see numbers as slow as 9K shipping :/.
For paperback? It's often true in this market that a first book can ship 9-15K. With returns factored in, that's... not a lot of sold books. So there's obviously no leverage with the numbers there (and I wouldn't try using those numbers -- but on the other hand, there probably aren't many editors who want to say "we're only going to sell 4,000 of these after returns", so it's unlikely that the editor will use those numbers either).
But 5K is an advance that many authors fail to earn out. It's probably harder to fail to earn it out than it used to be -- but then again, the low end mass market shipment 15 years ago was probably a 35K laydown (well, for the companies I'm familiar with in that time frame). Now? That would be good.
So... to go right back to things... 5-7,500K for a paperback original is fairly standard first book.