Like it or not, writing is a business. Sure, we'd happily sit with our laptops, typewriters, pens, pencils, Sharpies, crayons, or what have you, and crank out best-sellers til the cows come home, watching the money magically appear in our bank accounts. There would be bon-bon eating and bubble baths in there somewhere too.
And as much as I wish it worked like that, it's not going to happen.
At RWA 2011, I attended a workshop on contracts, and, of course, royalties and payment rates were brought up. My head was swimming with information already, so it all sounded like gibberish, but now that I'm getting closer to querying, it's something that concerns me.
Unfortunately, most of the information out there still sounds like gibberish to me. This stuff--math-wise, anyway--is right up there with doing taxes.
Rather than bore you with my own garbled understanding, I'm simply going to piggyback on two blog entries. One was done by my friend and fellow author, Laura Kaye, who did some nice neat maths (they put the "s" on math over here in the UK, so I can use it like that, dammit!) and broke some of the confusing bits down for us in a nice, easy-to-understand entry.
The other entry is more of an informative post by author Maya Banks, who has a ton of books out and uses some real-life examples. A lot of this entry involves digital publishing, but she is traditionally published as well.
So go ahead and check these out. I found them very eye-opening, and would love to know what you think. And, as always, I'm happy to pass on info I thought was helpful in case someone else will find it interesting, too.
xoxo Sarah
