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Fair Rate for Tech. Authors?
vbrtrmn writes: "I have been offered the opportunity to co-author a programming book for a major publisher. The publisher has made an offer, but I'm not sure if the offer is standard or if I am getting shafted. Have any of you written books before? What is a fair rate?"
Posted by polar_bear:
Don't really exist - I've dealt with a few publishers now, the bigger ones will offer an advance between $5K - $10K or more for an entire book. You'll also get a royalty if you're the sole or co-author, starting around 10% for the book. You can try to get more, depending on:
A) How bad they want to publish your title...
B) Who you are...
C) If they can get someone else to do it...
Dealing with publishers can be very frustrating, make sure you get a sense of the editors you'll be working with BEFORE you get fully involved. Be honest with yourself, too...does sitting down sifting through tons of information to distill one good chapter sound like fun? How are your writing skills? How are you at deadlines?
The bottom line is that publishers are looking to get the best deal, and some editors are very good to their authors and some aren't. Ask the AE to speak to other authors they've worked with - or don't! Go to Barnes and Noble and browse some of their books that the AE has worked on and contact the authors without asking them. If you're talking about an entire book, you'll be giving up a huge portion of the next several months, possibly a year, of your life. (Note - tech publishers try to push books through much faster than other types of publishing - for instance, a book on gardening isn't going to change dramatically when they release Soil 2.0, but your book will likely have a very limited shelf life.)
Finally, ask about promotion. What will they do to promote your book? My first publisher was a dud on promotion, and now I'm seeing my first title in Microcenter for $3.98. Very depressing. It might not have sold well anyway, but they did nothing to promote it - not even sending it to review editors. If royalties figure heavily in your calculation, you'd better be with a publisher that will push your book.
But, even though book publishing has been frustrating and less rewarding financially than writing articles...I'll continue to do it. It does have its rewards, and it's certainly good at building respect from your peers and for your resume...
I got US$20/page for something I wrote back in '96. I was dumb (well, naive) and poor back then, and I was willing to listen to the acquisitions editor when he told me that "some of [his] better authors write 4 chapters a week!" That sounded pretty good to me... US$2400 a week, maybe. Wow!
I'm not sure who these people are that can do that (hacks? machines? hack-machines?), but it's sure as hell not me. I try to budget 3 hours or so per _page_ right now, if I want for there to be any quality in it at all. Even that, that's probably not even fully-allocated time. It doesn't include:
The next book project I did, I was offered it at US$20/page again (enough though it was 2.5 years later, the market had changed, I had more experience, etc.). I asked for US$25/page, and was given it immediately. (Which can only make you wonder what the "true upper limit" on such a thing is.) Still, the money was garbage for the work I had to put into it.
Even then, don't just look at the money. The "standard contract" for a book that most tech publishers give you is... well, to call it one-sided doesn't even begin to describe it. :-) If you hope to have any kind of personal involvement or control over the project or what happens to it after publication, you're likely in for quite an uphill battle.
Love him or hate him, Philip Greenspun has some interesting things to say about the publishing business for tech books. To a greater or lesser degree, I agree with him. Check it out... http://philip.greenspun.com/wtr/dead-trees/story.h tml
Does all this mean that I won't write again? No way! I love writing, and I keep going back to it time and time again. I might even be getting better at it over the years, and that puts me in a better position to negotiate contracts, pitch ideas, plan the book the way that I want the book to be, etc. It's hard work, and there's a lot of BS involved, and the pay isn't great, but it can be incredibly gratifying to do.
Please feel free to mail me if you'd like to talk any more about this.
Cheers,
Richard
And it's a Linux book! ;)
Is it a flat rate or a royalty and advance? I've dealt with a couple of book companies and they usually have standard contracts, since they put out a lot of books. If you are a full time author with them you can negotiate better terms...but if you do one here and one there, you usually get what they offer.
I'm not sure what my confidentiality agreement says on me releasing numbers, but if you want to mail me in private we can compare notes. Just remove spam-free from my email address.
When I wrote my book on the X Windows Server (sadly, out of print now), it was typical for technical authors to get somewhere between 12% and 18% of the net proceeds to the publisher.
Notice the term net proceeds. That means the amount that the publisher actually received for the book, not the price that someone pays at the bookstore.
What the publisher recieves will vary depending on who's buying and how much they order. (You bet your bippy that Borders gets a better price than Ed's Technical Emporium.). A reasonable estimate is that the publisher will receive about 70% of the cover price, usually, and rarely less than 50% of the cover price.
So, take the cover price of the book, multiply that by say 0.70 then multiply that result by your percentage, say, 0.15 for 15%. That's the amount you'd roughly clear on the sale of a single copy.
It goes without saying that YMMV.
Much more important than all of that, however, is the promotional power of the publishing house you contract with. This cannot be overstated: Number of copies sold is much more important than the royalty amount per copy!
Don't fall for a publisher who promises you 20% without asking "20% of what?"
A 10% royalty on 10,000 copies is better than a 20% royalty on 3,000 copies.
Most publishers won't even want to sign with you unless they think you've got a book in you that's worth at least 5,000 copies. Ask them how they intend to sell it, how they'll promote it, how many other books they have that are like it, and how well they sold those books.
Get numbers.
The name of the game is number of copies sold.
Remember, there's no such thing as The New York Times Best Royalty list
Easier for us to let you know if it's OK, eh? Post a reply letting us know what it is that you are being offered...
I can't be karma whoring - I've already hit 50!
SIG: HUP
Basicly, assume that they are trying to shaft you in various polite and businesslike ways.
The worst they can do if you ask for more money is tell you no. Always remember that. They will almost always offer you less than they will pay, generally in case you do demand more.
You also might want to have a lawyer take a peek at your contract in general. Sometimes contracts are not worth signing, if you are liable for more damages than you are paid. But contracts are boilerplate that is negotiable, so you can always try to get around that by having your lawyer creatively modify the meaning of a clause. The biggest bear is the recent influx of liability causes, which state that if somebody sues them, you generally end up footing the bill. Those can really get you.
Gentoo Sucks