Real Money as a Best Selling Author

I stumbled upon a great blog today. This wonderful post explains the financial ins and outs of being a bestselling author. It is, unsurprisingly, not nearly as impressive as we new writers would hope. But this sobering information is so needed, and so appreciated.

Here’s a small glimpse…

“To give you a condensed version of what all those figures mean, for the sale period of July through November 30, 2008. my publisher reports sales of 64,925 books, for which my royalties were $40,484.00. I didn’t get credit for all those sales, as 21,140 book credits were held back as a reserve against possible future returns, for which they subtracted $13,512.69 …

My net earnings on this statement was $27,721.31, which was deducted from my advance. My actual earnings from this statement was $0.

My advance for Twilight Fall was $50,000.00, a third of which I did not get paid until the book physically hit the shelf … my agent received $7,500.00 as her 15% (which she earns, believe me) the goverment received roughly $15,000.00, and $1594.27 went to cover my expenses (office supplies, blog giveaways, shipping, promotion, etc.) After expenses and everyone else was paid, I netted about $26K of my $50K advance for this book, which is believe it or not very good — most authors are lucky if they can make 10% profit on any book. This should also shut up everyone who says all bestselling authors make millions — most of us don’t.”

There so much more information on the blog. Please look at Genreality for more http://www.genreality.net/

Congress Bailing out Sex Industry???

Yeah, I had to read it twice, too!

It seems that our esteemed congress is about to get a visit from the sex industry and their hand is held out, just like the auto makers before them.

According to CNN, the spokesman for Larry Flint, the mastermind of Hustler, said:

“The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three…The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine.”

Well, I like smut as much as the next person, but I don’t think we’re in danger of losing the porn industry due to the economy. People will always support the industry. That’s just the way it is. Even the beggers agree, saying “DVD sales have slipped over the past year, but Web traffic has continued to grow.”

Don’t worry, your favorite porn stars aren’t going anywhere. They’re just seeing the cutbacks that people are making in their own lives, the way that they have in all the other industries.