Saturday, April 11, 2009

On Advances

Did you guys see this article in the New York Times on writer advances? I've mentioned a lot of the info before, but it's a very thorough piece and well worth reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/books/review/Meyer-t.html?_r=1

1 comment:

sarah pekkanen said...

Thanks for pointing out this piece. One thing that wasn't discussed here -- which really surprised me when my novel sold -- was how foreign rights quickly add up. Obviously there's no guarantee that you'll sell overseas, but those advances can be significant.

An agent I spoke to a while back told me that she had a lot of trouble selling one of her client's books, and eventually it sold in paperback in Greece (there was a connection to Greece in the manuscript). The book went on to sell in 20 countries, an although each advance was in the low five figures, the final tally was into the six figures. Of course, the commission is usually 20 percent for foreign sales, but still...