After learning that I write books, I often get asked the same question - they ask me about the fee. This question can sound differently: “Is it really possible to earn a living by writing?”, “And how much did you grab for the last book?”, “What fee should a novice writer (meaning - the questioner) count on?” etc. I'll try to answer.
Is the amount big?
I think, and a no brainer, that the size of the fee directly depends on the circulation. But how? And it’s very simple - the larger the circulation, the greater the fee 😉
Royalties are usually 6-12% of the total cost of circulation. In the contract, in the clause on the payment of royalties, this percentage can be specified directly, or a certain amount of money can be indicated there - if you recalculate it, you should again reach the same 6-12% of the cost of circulation.
The cost of circulation is calculated simply: you need to multiply the selling price of one book by the number of books (circulation). The selling price of the publishing house at the moment (2003) is approximately 30-35 rubles per book. (Yes, yes! Sellers do 100-300% cheat).
But this is the general case. There are also exceptions. There are small publishing houses that pay royalties in author's copies. Want to fill your kitchen with stacks of books? Would you like to give gifts to all relatives? Do you know any booksellers? - then this option may suit you.
There is one fairly well-known publishing house (I won’t name it 🙂), which doesn’t bother paying royalties at all. But maybe it doesn't matter to you? It also happens - many agree to be left without money, if only the book came out.
Well, now let's figure out how much science fiction writers of different ranks get 😉
Books by a certain Mikhail Klikin %) are printed in 8-10 thousand copies. How much is in money - consider yourself.
The circulation of each new book by Nick Perumov (excluding reprints) is approximately 100,000 copies. This should bring the author $10,000.
And Joan Rolling, the mother of Harry Potter, having released her new book in Russia in a million copies, should receive $ 100,000 from Russian publishers alone (However, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this figure. How the fee is charged to her, I don’t know.)
How is it paid
The fee is usually paid in two installments. At the time of signing the contract, an advance is paid - usually it is half or a third of the total amount. The author receives the rest of the fee after the book is published, usually in 1-3 months - this period should be specified in the contract.
But, again, this is the general case. There are enough exceptions. For example, the publishing house "Armada" ("Alpha-book"), as a rule, does not pay an advance. They release books quite quickly, in a few months. And the fee - all, entirely - is paid after the release of the book. By the way, they pay well.
If some publishing house is interested in your text, it can pay the money immediately after signing the contract - the ideal option, in my opinion, is no worries and worries about “they will deceive, they won’t deceive, what if the dollar exchange rate collapses, or the publisher goes bankrupt ...” 🙂
So is it possible to make money writing?
Probably you can. However, it all depends on your needs. For example, I need a little for a normal life - 4-8 thousand rubles a month.
If you decide to become a professional writer, then you need to soberly assess some circumstances:
1. Few writers became famous for their first book. Most take years and years to get any sort of publicity.
2. Most authors write a book for several months. Then you need to find a publisher - this can also take a long time (my first book traveled through publishers for two years). Then for about half a year the book will be prepared for publication ... But all this time you have to live on something! Therefore, most beginners (and not only) writers are forced to earn extra money. Can you combine work and writing? I still get it.
3. A beginner (any little-known) author should not count on a large circulation. 6-8 thousand copies. — that's good. You will get a little money from this (reread item 2). And your second book, most likely, will be released in the same circulation. And the third ... Are you ready for this? ..
To sum up - if you want to make money - find another way to do it. Erwin Cobb said, "If writers were good businessmen, they would be smart enough not to be writers."
And for some reason I think he's right. 🙂
Mikhail Klikin
Interesting material about how much modern Russian writers earn. Zakhar Prilepin, German Sadulaev and other writers discuss this topic.
Boris Akunin. Photo: TV channel 24_DOC
Why St. Petersburg writers earn less cashiers
They write poems and novels in their free time from their main work.
Vladimir Mayakovsky traveled around Moscow in the first foreign car in the USSR. Sergei Yesenin was the owner of a cafe and two cinemas. Modern writers and poets cannot even dream of such a thing. Many authors receive about 30 thousand rubles for one book (and it can be written for several years). "MK" in St. Petersburg "found out why literary talent is so cheaply valued today.
Darya Dontsova. Photo: www.hozvo.ru
Poets only have enough for toilet paper
“I have never tried to live on literature,” says writer German Sadulaev (his novels were shortlisted for major literary awards, Russian Booker, National Bestseller, and Big Book). — Thank God, I have a small legal business. And almost all modern writers are forced to work somewhere. Because literature does not feed.
Indeed, the writer Valery Hayrapetyan is a doctor. Andrei Astvatsaturov (his novels were shortlisted for the Dovlatov Prize, New Literature, National Bestseller) teaches at St. Petersburg State University. Andrey Gelasimov (winner of the Student Booker and National Bestseller awards) is a screenwriter. They write their novels in “free time from work” - at night, on weekends, on vacation. Otherwise you won't survive.
“Suppose the book was published with a circulation of 3,000 copies,” says German Sadulaev. - Many writers receive about 10 rubles from each sold copy. That is, it is 30 thousand. True, if the novel sold well, then the publishing house will release a new edition, say, already in 5 thousand copies. And when they sell him, the writer will receive another 50 thousand rubles. But this rarely happens.
For comparison, a cashier in a supermarket earns about 300 thousand rubles a year. And the writer, not very well known to a wide circle of readers, but talented and hung with book awards, at best - 80 thousand.
Things are even worse for contemporary poets. Their earnings would have outraged the guest worker-janitor.
German Sadulaev. Photo: volternews.ru
“There is enough money for a toothbrush, toilet paper, coffee and cigarettes,” says St. Petersburg poet Ivan Pinzhenin. - Therefore, I work as a German tutor and lead the holidays. Any. Weddings, birthdays, children's parties. I write poetry at night.
Unlike writers, whose books are still being printed at the very least, poets in publishing houses are looked upon as urban lunatics. In most cases, they agree to publish their collections there only if the poet himself pays for it.
- I have a collection of poems. But for some reason the money to print it was allocated to me by the Moscow Economics and Development Foundation. I have no idea why they paid attention to me,” says Ivan Pinzhenin. - As a result, I released 700 copies, and I spent the money from the sale on a new edition of my collection. By the way, he almost broke up. In general, I try not to get upset because of all this. I always remember Alexander Blok: the first edition of his poem "The Twelve" was only 1,700 copies, and he, too, could not sell for a long time...
In order for at least someone to hear his poems, Ivan Pinzhenin tours the clubs. Most often provincial. There he reads his poetry, and then sells his own books for a symbolic 100 rubles, which he takes with him from St. Petersburg in a large suitcase. From the club, however, he receives a “salary” - as a rule, 60 percent of the proceeds from entrance tickets. Except that a lot of people don't go to poetry readings. If 50 people gather, it's already good. But Ivan was still lucky, he is still more or less known, albeit on the Internet. But no one suspects the existence of the majority of St. Petersburg poets, except for themselves. Of course, no one will let them play in the club.
According to the writers themselves, only commercial authors who “specialize” in science fiction, romance novels and detective stories can live on income from books in Russia. Among them, for example, Daria Dontsova or Boris Akunin. Victor Pelevin or Vladimir Sorokin breathe in their backs. But no one can repeat their experience yet. Even Zakhar Prilepin, although his latest novel The Abode became the most read book in the country following the results of the past summer.
“I have four children, and I cannot feed them only at the expense of literature,” says Zakhar Prilepin. - Therefore, half of all my income is still connected not with literature, but rather with the media sphere. In principle, small “money” streams flow towards me from all sides. You can publish your articles in magazines, write scripts. If your books are translated into foreign languages, then you can get something for that. I have all this, but for this I had to earn a name for myself for a very long time, to work for him. In addition, there are also literary awards, the winners of which receive very substantial rewards: one to three million rubles. That is, every year about 20 writers win this money. There is, of course, an opinion that literary awards have their own mafia, which allegedly distributes prize money only among its own, sawing them with a hand saw. These are all fairy tales for the poor. Not so much money is at stake to embark on such “adventures” for their sake. Everything is fair, and no acquaintances in the Ministry of Culture will help you win, say, the Russian Booker.
Eduard Limonov and Zakhar Prilepin
There is another source of income. That writer, whose books are bought up in stores in flight, can be "outbid" by another publishing house. Much like a football player. In this case, the publishing house acquires for a certain period (usually 3-5 years) the rights to all already printed books and a couple of books not yet written. Therefore, the amount that is transferred to the writer's account becomes very impressive. Let's say only one book can cost 300-500 thousand rubles ... But such luck smiles only at a few.
“For many other writers, writers' income tends to a minimum, to zero,” Zakhar Prilepin admits. “And then there's this idiotic liberal idea that a writer shouldn't get paid for his profession at all. Like, in the damned USSR, the state paid writers 2 thousand rubles for a poetry book, and it was terrible, this is totalitarianism! It's better like now - when writers don't get anything at all and quietly die somewhere in obscurity. Writers in Soviet times received an infinite number of pleasures and benefits from the Soviet regime. Isaac Babel, for example, communicated with the Chekists, was considered their man, was at Yezhov's birthday party. And the imagists - Sergei Yesenin, Anatoly Mariengof, Vadim Shershenevich - had a cafe, two cinemas. Their cafe was exempt from taxes. And by the way, it was the only place in Moscow that could work until 2 am. All others close at 10pm. These poets took the train and traveled on their own routes to tour the country. And Mayakovsky drove around in the first foreign car in the USSR ... Of course, the life of the same Yesenin, of course, could not be called beautiful. But he made money! He admitted that he receives a ruble per line. As well as, by the way, Anna Akhmatova. For comparison, the salary of a secretary at that time was about 15 rubles, and a skilled worker - 25. But writers lived best in the late USSR. Three good magazine publications and you can buy a car.
Literary ragamuffin
State support for literature, which was in the USSR, still exists in many European countries.
— For example, in Estonia, the state at its own expense publishes books by little-known writers or poets. Let even a tiny edition of 100 copies, says German Sadulaev. “But their writers work normally, develop the Estonian language and culture. The situation is similar in Norway. When they realized that their own literature was slowly dying, they provided a huge amount of grants for writers who write their works in Norwegian and translate others. As a result, the whole world thundered, for example, the author of detectives Nesbe. For comparison, we have the great and universally recognized writer Yuri Mamleev, who has done a lot for modern Russian literature. But his books are published in tiny editions, because this literature is very complex. And he is literally in trouble! Recently, he needed some help for treatment. And we collected money for him all over the world. But this should not be! And finally, we must understand that culture must be supported; it will never be able to pay for itself. In the end, this is important for the self-consciousness of the nation, for its pride. Otherwise, soon we will have nothing of our own ...
Yuri Mamleev. Photo: mag.afisha.ru
In addition to grants and scholarships for honored writers (their names should be determined by the expert community), writers offer to somehow support bookstores.
“For example, they need to reduce rent,” says writer Andrey Astvatsaturov. “Now it turns out that people who open a liquor store and a bookstore pay the same amount to the state. It is not right.
It is possible that if the state somehow pays attention to literature, we will finally have great writers. So far no new names...
“I know many people who have written one or two books and left literature,” says Andrei Konstantinov, writer and director of the Agency for Journalistic Investigations. - They said: that's it, I won't fool around anymore, because there is a lot of work, but in material terms you get, as they say, a big bag of onions. And these people no longer grow into great writers, although they could. They shrink and leave this profession. And many of those who have nowhere to go are lumpenized. You sometimes look at a famous writer, and he is dressed like a ragamuffin, and there is no cloud of well-being around him. At one time, a similar situation was in the education system. When the crisis happened, professors, associate professors, university professors became the first ragged ones. And many young people looked at them like this: well, what can you teach me in your worn-out shoes, you are a loser, but I don’t want to repeat your fate! By the way, we eventually lost our education system. The main thing is that the same should not happen to literature.
Text: Ekaterina Dementieva
Is it easy to sell e-books, and how much is a buyer really willing to shell out online for a legally purchased copy? The writer Sergey Lukyanenko and the authors of the e-book planet blog tried to answer this question.
Is it easy to sell e-books, and how much is a buyer really willing to shell out online for a legally acquired copy? The writer Sergey Lukyanenko and the authors of the e-book planet blog tried to answer this question.
Among the many myths that accompany ways to make money on the Internet, the myth of how easy it is for a novice author to make money in the virtual world is very popular. Here, the costs of publishing digital copies are several times less, and word of mouth advertising of a talented work does not require money.
But is it so easy to sell e-books and how much, in fact, is a buyer ready to put on the Internet for a copy acquired legally, and not downloaded from a pirated resource?
The writer Sergei Lukyanenko and the authors of the e-book planet blog, which is part of the Internet project of the Russian State Library for Youth, tried to answer this question.
As initial data, the open results of Lukyanenko's experiment on the electronic sale of the book "New Watch", published by the author on a personal blog, are used. So, sales of electronic copies were carried out on several sites: Amazon (version for Kindle), Imhonet, Plati.ru, through the donate button of the PayPal system.
What could such a promoted and sought-after author like Sergey Lukyanenko earn by selling paperless copies on the Internet?
1. 55 copies were sold on Amazon, with royalties ranging from 35% to 70%. The total amount is $204.41. At the same time, Lukyanenko emphasizes that there were some problems with automatic transcoding, plus very quickly the book in Kindle format became available to pirates.
2. 396 copies were sold through Imhonet, including 171 electronic copies, 43 printed copies through the “thank you” function, and 182 printed copies. , amounting to more than half of the amount received in monetary terms.
3. The total amount received through Plati.ru was about 33,000 rubles plus about $4,000. Unfortunately, Lukyanenko did not indicate the number of copies sold, unlike the first two services.
4. Through the "donate" button of the PayPal system, the author received about $ 2,000 (excluding system commission) with an average donation of $ 4. Although the sums transferred were mostly within the limits declared, the author notes that there were transfers of both the dollar and the one hundred pounds.
So, the total amount received in the form of payment for the book and voluntary donations was about $10,000. At the same time, the starting circulation of the New Watch is 120,000 copies. Without disclosing interest rates, which are a commercial secret, Sergei Lukyanenko notes that “the amount received electronically, although impressive, is more than an order of magnitude inferior to my“ paper ”fee.”
It is very roughly possible to estimate the volume of electronic copies sold at several thousand copies (comparing the available data on the number of copies sold and the remuneration received).
According to the results of the experiment, it turns out that it is almost impossible for a novice writer to earn enough money to live by publishing his publications in the form of e-books. “How much will a writer collect, whose books are now published not in 120, but in 12 thousand copies? Ten times less. A thousand dollars for a year of labor.
What is his way out of the situation? Either give up writing, or work elsewhere, and reduce literature to a hobby, or “drive the shaft” - in order to earn not a thousand, but at least three or four thousand a year (in fact, this is unrealistic, the quality will drop quickly and income too) ".
And if the situation with income from e-copies does not change for the better, the death of popular literature is inevitable, since “to receive a decent fee for e-books, the author must be super popular. If he is super popular, he still earns so much on paper books that electronic books do not play a significant role for him.
But the process is underway. Paper circulation will fall. And if the income of authors from e-commerce books does not grow to meet this fall, then on the graph we will get a “writer's cross”, which will kill popular literature.
In the final conclusions, Sergei Lukyanenko actually gives advice to those who nevertheless decided to embark on a risky voyage through the sea of e-commerce:
"one. E-book publishing is slowly developing. But, alas, not fast enough to keep up with the decline in paper circulation.
2. The most promising for authors is still not services that allow you to “donate” money to the author (by the way, I’m not saying that it’s very unpleasant for many, including me, to hang up the donate button - there are billions of people in the world who need donations), but normal services selling e-books.
3. A normal service that sells e-books is one that provides the author (or his agent, or electronic publishing house - and there it will agree with the author) all the payment minus 10-15% commission.
4. In the future, I intend to reserve ALL electronic rights to new books, since existing publishers do not know how to work on the Internet and conduct electronic commerce in person ... For some of the authors, a personal electronic book store will be useful. For others - a single store, like the same "Litres" or others, which will combine convenient service, a variety of payment methods, different formats of books ... "
Analyzing the first results of Lukyanenko's experiment, Planet e-books gives its own vision of the problem. So, to identify talented authors, the following is proposed: “there should be a mechanism for identifying talented authors who need both support and promotion (in my opinion, the mechanisms of professional self-organization of authors and publishers should work here).
Guaranteed purchase of a part of the printed edition (let me remind you that there are over 40 thousand libraries in the country and for regional and large municipal libraries several thousand is a minimum minimum) and a guaranteed purchase of the right to unlimited loans on a digital subscription in all libraries (even if purchased at large wholesale prices) can support non-commercial publications of talented authors.
I think that similar methods of support can be applied to the publication of educational literature and literature that will be read by students, graduate students and scientists. Here, a circulation of 1-2 thousand copies is considered high, and here, in my opinion, the guaranteed purchase of a part of the circulation of hard copies for large libraries and the wholesale purchase of the right to unlimited subscription “in digital” will help the authors receive at least some kind of remuneration.”
As far as commercial titles are concerned, with the expectation of making a full living from the royalties from their publication, "commercial titles (with an eye to 'living on royalties') start somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 hardcover copies of the first edition. . Softcover and e-copy sales no later than “to the day” with the start of hardcover sales will give something else.
It is clear that Lukyanenko's latest book has an order of magnitude higher circulation and, so far, the printed part of the circulation provides most of the income. I think that the circulations (authors whose books are published in circulation over) 10-15 thousand copies. in the near future, sales of legal digital copies will begin to generate over 50% of income.
Circulations (authors whose books are published in more than 100 thousand copies), I think, there is still some time until the printed circulation of even hyped books will fall below 100 thousand copies. and the main income will come from the sale of legal digital copies. I think that 5–7 years is the limit of the time reserve that even well-known authors have in order to find a sales mechanism in which St. 50% of the author's income comes from legal sales of digital copies.
At the same time, an attempt was made to estimate the number of legal digital copies (this issue is of concern not only to Sergey Lukyanenko in the cited publication, but also to any other author whose works are digitized on the Internet): “I think that trade was carried out through established channels, at least , no worse and sold in two months should be at least no less than what the author himself sold.
It turns out (with a very large share of "estimation") that 7-10 thousand legal copies of the book were sold in 2 months. I think that the printed book sold no more than 40-50 thousand copies, i.e., the hypothesis is confirmed that for those works that are on legal sale, the number of sales of legal digital copies is 10-15% of the total number of sales.
As you can see, making a living writing on the Internet is not so easy. In addition to a good pen, you need to have a remarkable entrepreneurial talent or someone who is ready to take on the hardships of promoting your personal brand in the digital world.
How can an aspiring writer start making money?
I wrote for all these reasons, though at different periods of my life. In my youth, under the impression of the books I read, I myself wanted to create something grandiose, but all grandeur ended at the very first chapter. Either there wasn’t enough imagination, or something else, but I wasn’t particularly upset, because. I got light, unpretentious articles, and I successfully published them in a local newspaper like Selskaya Nov'. I attached photographs to the articles and was happy to see my name in the next issue of the newspaper. They paid a penny for it, but what a district-scale fame! And the process itself brought great satisfaction. Yes... The process itself... But that was a distant, very different from the present time...
The creative process is, of course, good when a thought takes you into the past or into the future, but in the present you will not be satisfied with one process. And when you once again open the refrigerator, you start to think how to combine your favorite hobby with earnings. Indeed, many authors, due to the fact that they are not in demand, have to look for other, uninteresting ways of making money. How do you start making money as an aspiring writer?
The easiest thing, in my opinion, is to write articles for websites. Yes, yes, it is necessary to start with the Internet. First, it will be good practice. Secondly, it is much easier to attach your article on the Internet. Third, there are no evil publishers, editors, and censors on the Internet. Over time, you will feel in what manner to present this or that material, gain experience, and you will have your own style. And after all, you can already enter the big arena and feel on an equal footing with "evil publishers, editors and censors." Although, many writing work on the Internet is so addictive that they no longer think about publishing in print publications.
You will choose the final version for your activity yourself. Both in real life and on the Internet have their pros and cons.
On the Internet, orders for articles can be found on numerous exchanges of articles (content). Texts for websites require a variety of topics. Exchanges are a kind of intermediaries. Customers place orders - copywriters take over their implementation. For convenience, we will agree that in this article, under the concept of copywriting, we will mean the writing of any author's text, as, in fact, this is already understood in a large number of Internet authors. Of course, there is competition among copywriters, so you need to learn how to write articles faster and better than others.
Self-respecting authors charge at least $1-$1.5 for 1000 signs (characters) for their work. But these people have already acquired a good reputation, they have regular customers and they can dictate their prices. Many of them have their own websites, where services and prices are detailed, portfolios are posted. Well, a novice author at first will have to be content with little. Many novice writers, in order to gain experience, at first agree to write texts at a price of only $ 0.15 - $ 0.2 per 1000 characters. Subsequently, you can certainly count on the appearance of regular customers and an increase in prices. But for this you need to prove yourself on the good side.
If for some reason you cannot find a suitable order for yourself on the article exchanges, and you don’t want to waste your time, then you can write articles without an order. Only the topic should be chosen interesting for most people. Or you can be more efficient and be the first to announce, for example, some technical novelty. I always check for spam in my mailbox. Sometimes some junk can lead to an interesting topic for an article. During my work, the TV is always on, and sometimes you can hear something out of the corner of your ear that tells you what else you can write about. There are many options, you just need to be smart and be more active.
After the article is ready, you can put it up for sale on one of the content exchanges, indicating your price. There is a buyer for a quality product. Do not worry about the theft of your creation, because. exchanges guarantee the protection of texts from copying.
Articles to order are more difficult to write. It's good when inspiration hits the back of your head and you start banging on the keys, forgetting about a cup of coffee and a smoke break. But the order is already a more responsible matter. Here you already start to think also about whether the customer will like the article. And if you have already chosen writing as a way of earning money, then you need to treat this as a job. Imagine that you have come to the office and have to work 8 hours a day, and if inspired, all 18. But you don’t have to go anywhere, because the writer’s office is his home with a cozy atmosphere or a summer house (in the literary village of MASSOLIT). Therefore, the whole environment is conducive to work without hack work. Gradually, you will be recognized as a good author, but you will have to start from a minimum.
On the Internet, articles for websites are written by two main methods - copywriting and rewriting. Copywriting is the author's text on any topic. Such texts are written by the authors themselves. Before writing an article, you can study the necessary information on the desired topic. You can find almost everything on the web. Rewriting is rewriting someone else's article in your own words. Clients, as a rule, when ordering a rewrite, give the source text, or indicate where it can be found. In addition, if you know foreign languages, you can start translating articles. This type of activity is also provided for on content exchanges.
In conclusion, I would like to say that writing texts for Internet sites has its own characteristics. Here you need to know what seo-copywriting is, superficial and deep rewriting, how to write advertising texts correctly for posting them on the Internet. Read about all this in a little more detail in a series of articles on the Profitgates.ru website.
Is it possible to become a writer?
Let's start with a small portion of pure writing motivation. This paragraph will be short, these words are written just to somehow take your time, and at the same time to make it clear how words can be disposed of. Arrange words in a sentence, make a creative departure from the main topic, and finally give your brain food for thought.
And most importantly, every generation has its own classics, and who knows, maybe you are one of them.
How to become a good writer.
1. Ask a question to those around you: how to become a good writer? What is required for this? Most people will immediately answer, literary talent. But what is literary talent? Maybe some data given to us at birth? Partly, yes. At the same time, let's take the musicians. The presence of only one absolute pitch does not make a person a musician. What does he do? That's right, practice, the ability to reach out to people, to the right place at the right time, at times, and in the end to sell your talent.
2. Besides, writing is not the only skill a writer should have. As a rule, each reader has his favorite author. And as a rule, he is loved for a reason. The reader likes to read and re-read the works they like. But you don't just like reading certain people. I like how your eyes run over the lines, how the words are arranged in the sentence, and the text is presented, I like the point of view the author looks at the situation from. And all these things can be summed up in one word - experience.
3. Perhaps each of the great writers at least once in his life, like you, wondered how to write a good book. And like you, he also looked for suitable literature. It is known that many writers loved the works of their colleagues so much that they sometimes rewrote them completely. It is believed that in this way you will not learn to write like the great classics, but in the process of copying words and writing other people's thoughts with your own hand, you will acquire your own writing style.
Why you can become the most popular writer of our time.
One of the modern classics said that only losers write articles for magazines, and those who really love to write write books. There is truth in these words. And despite the development of the Internet, despite the fact that millions of sites require writing articles and materials, no one has yet canceled good books. There is always a demand for them.
How to publish a book online and make money with Lulu.
You don't really need much to write books. Ask yourself the question: "How to become a writer?" That's right - write a story first! Enough in electronic form. But to become a successful writer, perseverance alone is not enough, you need a good, catchy plot - and there is the most important thing in a writer, his trademark zest.
How to publish a book online for free? Today on the Internet, many online publishers offer to create a book for free and start selling it. The most popular and offering similar services are the Amazon online store, as well as the online publishing house lulu.com.
Lulu Publication Terms.
Lulu will require only a couple of things from you: the presence of a story in electronic form (in a Microsoft Word document) and only in English, and also edit it in a form that can be downloaded from the Lulu website. If you don't want to edit, they can do it for you.
After choosing book templates: black and white or color pages, book up to 75 or more than 200 pages, and the like. The publisher prepares your work for publication. Subsequently, for each book sold, you can get from 8-20 dollars. Not bad, right?
What is the benefit for the publisher?
It is only domestic publishing houses that offer to make big money for publication. Only for the publication and we are not talking about distribution of further sales. Lulu will help you earn money by writing and shows at once how much money the book itself will cost, how much money it will take to create a book (in electronic and paper forms), what percentage the publishing house will keep for each copy sold, and what fee the author will receive in the end.
This fee is called royalty. Publishers work in the following way:
1) The author writes a book and sends it to a publisher.
2) If the publisher likes the text, they agree on the terms of the contract with the author. In it, the publisher offers the conditions under which both parties will work.
3) Next comes the editing of the text and the layout of the book (in the event that it will be in paper form).
4) When the book arrives on the shelves of stores (this also applies to online stores), the editors and the author can only share the profit according to the contract.
In conclusion…
In our today's material, we touched on topics: how to become a writer, and considered one of the ways of modern publishing. If you have any questions - write in the comments.
