Anna David, Publisher, Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, and Television Personality: When I was being
traditionally published my first book deal was fifty thousand dollars. I did five more deals.
My final book deal was for two thousand dollars. Film Courage: How much money can an author expect
to make on their first book? Let's say they have a publisher involved. Anna: Publishing has
changed so much since when I got into it in 2005. Back then I will tell you I'm always very tacky
and open about money. I got paid fifty thousand dollars for my first book from HarperCollins and
I was devastated because I knew all these people who were making getting hundreds of thousands of
dollars. This was actually almost at the same time that Hollywood was paying a lot of money for spec
scripts too. Now I hear about advances that are five to ten thousand dollars. Publishing is an
even more broken business than Hollywood. The way publishing works is that they know they're
going to really make the bulk of their money off of probably one or two books all year and they're
going to put all their marketing and all their promotion and all their efforts between into those
few books and they consider everything else just a loss leader they're just sort of throwing it out
99 of books do not earn out their advance so and the way that works is so I was paid fifty thousand
dollars so that Harpercollins has a situation where they've got they're going to spend fifty
thousand dollars on the editing and the cover and all of the things and then once it comes starts to
come in then you split your percentage with your publisher I've never earned out most authors have
never earned out so obviously if you get a lower Advance you're going to earn out more quickly
but basically the way the way publishing works is there are these books that are the Fifty Shades
of Gray, the Eat Pray Love The Glennon Doyle books whatever those are and they most of the population
doesn't read so for a book to hit basically it has to hit a segment of the population
that doesn't read where people are going to be going to parties and someone will say oh did you
read Eat Pray Love or did you read 50 Shades of Gray and they're going to feel stupid that they
haven't read it so a book just goes crazy when people who don't even read books are reading it
and so and so those are the books there's just there's no there used to be something called the
mid list author the midlist author would sell 5 000 copies of a book 8 000 copies of the book now
it's just the millions and millions or the people that are selling books under a thousand copies
what about if you become a New York Times best-selling author how does life change
that is interesting because it you can hit the New York Times bestseller list selling 3
000 copies it's all depends on what else is being released that week and the Bible has never hit the
New York Times bestseller list because it's about the amount of sales in a particular week any of
the New York Times list as opposed to the Wall Street journalists or the USA Today list they
admit that it is a sort of editorial decision it's actually William Blatty who wrote The Exorcist his
second book Legion he sued the New York Times because he said this was only briefly on the list
I know how many copies it sold it went to court and New York Times said in court this is actually
an editorial decision so that is something that they are they they admitted in court
so the big misconception is that if you hit the New York Times list you're set for life
not at all true I know so many New York Times best-selling authors who are completely broke
and I know people who have self-published books that have sold 200 copies that are living large
so I was never more broke than when I was a New York Times best-selling author was that
perception an eye-opener for you I know you said that you thought once you sell these rights once
you get this book life will be wonderful I think inspires more delusion delusions than Hugh Grant
movies people go into it I was one of them you go in and you have this book and everyone says to you
like don't get your hopes up this phone doesn't happen for very many people and you're like yeah
yeah it's going to be different for me and I experience it and I have now witnessed probably
hundreds of people I know who have done the same thing and I can tell when I'm talking to them and
I and I try to give them my gentle love of like no no no this doesn't work don't compare yourself
to the exception compare yourself to the rule and and they just kind of give me this look of
like no it'll be different for me so I have found I have never been someone whose life has changed
overnight as a result of anything I know that does happen to people but I also know people who had
crazy hits out of the gate their first book went crazy and they spend the rest of their career
living in like the glory of their past I wouldn't want that either I want my greatest success to be
in front of me not behind me right I think it was an Elizabeth Wurtzel Prozac Nation or yeah
and David Foster Wallace [Infinite Jest], they had these hits right out of the gate and I know other
people who are still alive who that happened to as well right and there's other things that come with
it too because I think then you're kind of always like sneer dad in that world because you're the
one that was the was the darling out of the gate and I think that's a hard thing to live up to as
well I think it is I think it is I mean yeah right right but anyway it's different I know I get it
it's going to be different for me I understand right every it's always different what if you
self-publish what is money like then well I will say when I was being traditionally published my
first book deal was fifty thousand dollars I did five more deals my final book deal was for two
thousand dollars two thousand dollars so it worked out to about I guess like a quarter of a penny a
day for like my amount of work no money comes from Book Sales like I will say this until I'm
like blue in the face so self-publishing yes you can make more money from book sales because your
percentage is going to be higher but never look at it as the book sales I'm obsessed with like
what is the back end so I write books now that bring people they bring attention to my company
they add to my credibility as a publisher as an author as all of these things so yeah I'll make
like a couple thousand dollars on book sales but I can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in
clients so I think the whole perception has to change when we're talking about money just not
even I wanted to start a podcast called like screw Book Sales like it's not about the book sales it's
about there's no better credibility builder there's no better business card there is no
better way to say I am an expert than to publish a book book so why would you do that be the world be
one of the world's experts and have everyone want to hire you and be worried about the counting the
Pennies on the book sales it just doesn't make sense when you talked about Bill blattey or
William blatty with the Exorcist and then he had several other books I believe and you said there
was this this lawsuit back then was it more what people expect and it's drastically changed now
well publishing just Jeff Bezos changed publishing when self-publishing went from like your creepy
uncle's book that was like the the garage was filled with this book he was always passing
out family reunions that was self-publishing when Amazon changed and they created KDP where
anybody could actually go in and publish a book it changed everything I mean self-publishing isn't
new Stephen King his self-published Jane Austen self-published it's not new but the way it can be
done now the level at which it can be done it's indistinguishable from a traditionally published
New York Times best-selling book so the thing the problem with that is that people go great I mean
we could in the next 10 minutes publish a book on Amazon that doesn't mean it's going to be good
but so the distinction now isn't between what's traditionally published and what's self-published
but what's published at the highest level and what isn't published at the highest level what are the
different ways that an author is paid so you mean with traditional or just in general or self yeah
so if you're traditionally published you're paid your Advance which is usually broken up into
threes which is here's here's the third then the second third is when you turn it in and then the
third third is when you release it if you're self-published or you're paying a company to
publish you're going to put the money out and then it's up to you how you want to make the money back
what we do for our clients will put a QR code at the beginning of the book If you put it at
the beginning of the book because of Amazon's look inside feature people who don't even buy the book
could theoretically get whatever it is so people put on QR codes on the beginning of their book
they can you can put on the QR on the barcode on the back you can put it throughout and people do
all sorts of things there are there is a a writer named he's a marketer writer named Pat Flynn who
put a he has a book called Will It Fly great book and it's all about like is your business
idea viable he created a free course that the there's links throughout the book to the free
course from that free course the people who signed up he sold them a paid course and the person who
helped him do that I had on my podcast and he said through that he made a hundred and eleven thousand
dollars not from his full email list just from the list of the people who read the book and signed up
for the free course I don't know many authors that are making a hundred and eleven thousand dollars
on their launch day but that's the kind of thing that's possible what do you mean when you say
you're not going to make money from book sales so the book should be about your secret power
I mean that people read a how-to book because they want to solve a problem they want to know
how to do something and so a book should show somebody who wants to know how to do something
how they can do it but at the same time show how much more complicated the thing is to do
than they might have thought so somebody who could afford to would then want to pay somebody to do it
for them and who better to pay than the person who wrote the book on the topic on top of the
advance what about royalties well you're talking to someone who never earned royalties because they
you don't royalties don't kick in until after they have paid out the advance so so that's why authors
who just get like no advance or very minimal advances can earn back the I don't know the
exact percentages because it's never been relevant for me but trust me it's not in the author's favor
so the more you get up front almost like a film distribution deal the better you are
are you getting an accounting every month yes I mean my accountings are terribly depressing
yeah I mean you get an account I still think I get accountings on books of mine where they're like
no book sales for this month or whatever it is but but yeah like I said I just think looking at
the book sales is is a losing game do you own the rights to all of your books I only own the rights
to party girl and then how to get Successful by effing up your life and make your mess your Memoir
I sold the rights to five of my books to Harper and then one to Simon and Schuster with party
girl I was able to get the rights back which was an incredible thing because I knew the movie was
going to get made and I always hated the cover and I just basically decided Well Harper Collins
doesn't care about this book I really care about this book when the book came out Judith Regan had
been fired in the worst Scandal to ever hit publishing so all these high hopes they had
for the book there wasn't they talk in publishing about if your editor leaves to go to another house
you've been orphaned and I always said it's like the I was orphan and the orphanage was built to
the ground there was there was no office anymore so back then in 2007 bookstores mattered a lot lot
and the way Publishers got books into bookstores is they would send sales representatives there
were no sales representatives so the book was sort of DOA even though there was all this buzz and
all the movie rights and all of these things in order to get the rights back my contract
stipulated that I got them back within 10 years but we still had to get it official and so it was
very complicated my lawyer sent a lot letters to Harper Collins but because the division was
gone there was no one to approve it I had to get my agent involved and then finally at a certain
point I said I don't care I don't think Harper's going to care if I re-release it so I had my
cover designer do this amazing cover I decided I wanted to release it in September because it
was addiction recovery month and I was like what they can come after me hey it'll be good publicity
if they actually care and I already had plans to release the book and the the day before I get a
letter it's like congratulations you've got your rights back and I'm like thanks didn't even need
it no scandal darn okay yeah is 10 years a common length of time I actually don't know I don't know
I think when a publisher really values a book that they're going to fight to keep
it but it was almost like they cared so little that's why it was hard to
get them back because there was just no one who was even involved anymore.