Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks.
I don't take advances for my books.
The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.
The first book advance I got was paid out in thirds. And over time, as I've had different deals, the advances get chopped up into ever-smaller parcels.
I think it is worse [in 2015] for a mid-list author such as myself. You either have to sell like Stephen King or go with the small presses where there is no money. I was lucky to have been in the right place and time for many years.
A misconception that exists in the eyes of the general reading population is that authors make truckloads of money.
Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor - no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall.
Writing books and being paid for it - it's not like winning the Lottery. You can't suddenly go, 'Yippee!' and start throwing tenners in the air. I've done pretty well out of it, but certainly not enough to say, 'Right, that's me set up for life.'
It was a story called ‘The Hero’ which I sold to Galaxy magazine in 1970, for $94.
The publication of a book only brings very paltry results to its author.
I was always told you're not going to make much money from writing. You can actually do it. Now I've built a really good, big house out of words.
No writer has a right to make that much money. Indeed, without diabolical assistance, no writer can.
As soon as I finish a book, I sell the paperback rights to different publishers and that's where I recoup my money.
Most writers, most books, you have no idea whether it was a dollar or a million dollars.
Never measure literature by accounting statistics. A quarter of working authors earn less than $1,000.
I can ask for a £25,000 advance, but then you spend a year writing the book, and £25,000 is a loan against sales, and you can easily spend five years earning out. So that's £25,000 for six years.
The real important thing about Digital-Original publication goes beyond the fact that authors make more money off each sale than through traditional publishing. It's that we get to bypass a system of gatekeepers who have more than 'quality' as criteria for what they choose.
We, the authors, want people to buy books. That is the only way we can earn - from our royality.
I know one author whose royalty income has been halved from £34,000 a year to £16,000.
