How much does an author earn? A very simple question, but the answer to which is very mysterious. And for good reason: it strongly depends on the success of the author, but also on the genre in which he writes and his publishing house. However, the answer to the question “How are authors paid?” » is not much better known!

How much does an author earn? A very simple question, but the answer to it is very mysterious. And for good reason: it strongly depends on the success of the author, but also on the genre in which he writes and his publishing house. However, the answer to the question “How are authors paid?” » is not much better known!

In this article, we wanted to lift the veil on the authors' remuneration system that few writers know about before they are offered a first contract.

TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING

A small digression first: In France, we are fortunate that books are protected by the Lang law of 1981 on the single price of books. This means that the price of a book will be the same in all places of sale, whether small independent bookstores or large stores. This obligation is of capital importance to preserve the diversity of editorial production (or bibliodiversity ) which is mainly defended by small structures. To give you an idea, in the United States, where no regulations protect independent bookstores, the number of bookstores is equivalent to that of France, for a much larger population and territory.

The diagram above gives a good idea of ​​the distribution of the price of the book between the different actors involved in its production.

The only fixed part is VAT which is 5.5%.

The author's share generally varies between 8% and 12%. This rate depends on its previous successes and the resources of its publishing house. Some contracts provide for evolving rates; for example, the author will receive 8% on the first 10,000 copies then 10% between 10,000 and 20,000 copies and finally 12% beyond 20,000 copies.

The margins of each participant in the chain being very tight, the share of copyright remains the same when several authors or illustrators must then share it, which is often the case in the field of illustrated.

The bookseller's share is around 35-36%. It may give the impression that the bookseller is the one who earns the most money in this business, but that is far from the case! In reality, the bookstore is one of the least profitable businesses in France: the majority of the bookseller's income is used to pay his rent and the salaries of his employees. He must also manage several levels of inventory which tie up a large part of his cash flow.

Books are a market that generates relatively few profits and many of its players maintain economic equilibrium. Between the author and the bookstore's customers , many other milestones occur, which are not always known. Here is their role:

Beyond the work of selecting and editing texts, the publisher generally takes care of promotion, marketing and management of relations with the press and bookstores.

The manufacturer takes care of the production of the physical book (what a surprise!), in other words the management of relations with the printing company, the choice of materials and format in collaboration with the publisher, etc.

The main task of the distributor is to make the books of publishing houses known to their customers, i.e. bookstores. To do this, teams of representatives travel across France to present the books to booksellers.

Finally, the distributor takes care of the physical and financial flows: he sends the books to the booksellers and ensures that everyone's invoices are properly paid.

THE VALUE

The advance is one of the key points of the contract he signs with a publisher.

But what exactly is it? It is very simply an advance on copyright, a sum that the author receives upon signing the contract.

The average premium is 1,000 euros, but varies depending on the means of the house and the potential that the publisher sees in the title. Some publishers do not offer any advance payment and pay writers directly in royalties.

The advance being an advance , the author will not receive royalties before the sum which has been advanced to him is reimbursed. On the other hand, if the book does not sell as well as the publisher expected, the author does not have to reimburse anything. The advance is in a way a commitment that the publisher makes: since he has invested a certain sum on a title, he will deploy the necessary means to sell the book and thus reimburse himself.

COPYRIGHT

Once the advance has been reimbursed by book sales, the author will be able to start receiving his royalties in the form of an annual payment from his publishing house.

It is in fact once a year that publishers carry out the “ closing of accounts ”, that is to say the calculation of their turnover net of returns. Why net returns? Because in France booksellers have a right of return: if a book does not sell and ties up their stock, booksellers can choose to return it and are then reimbursed . The turnover net of returns therefore only takes into account books that have actually been sold by booksellers and not those which are in their stock and which can still be returned to the publisher.

As noted above, the average copyright rate is between 8% and 12%. Some exceptional writers obviously fall outside this framework – like Jean d'Ormesson who was nicknamed “Monsieur 18%” by his publisher – but these are exceptions.

For more copyright information, take a look at our article “ Copyright: knowing how to negotiate to protect your book ”.

SELF-PUBLISHING

A stubborn misconception is that the self-published author receives the entire price of his book. It needs to be qualified for two reasons:

Firstly because these books are most often available on platforms that take a commission on each sale. This is in addition to printing costs which are unavoidable. For example, KDP, Amazon's self-publishing service, takes 30% commission per digital sale and 40% on paper sales.

The authors' margin is therefore much higher than when they publish with a traditional publisher, which is normal since the costs only cover printing and the commission of the merchant site.

This is the second reason which leads us to put the profits of self-published authors into perspective. To obtain a quality book, the author must often call on service providers who will provide the services usually provided by a publisher: correction, layout, cover graphics, promotion, etc. These services have a cost and are not always available. reimbursed by sales.

These sales are all the more difficult because the self-published author does not benefit from the services of a distributor, his book is therefore not available in bookstores, except in rare exceptions. He also generally does not have access to traditional media which play an important role in the visibility of self-published writers. It is possible to generate regular income when you self-publish, but it requires time and investment since you have to ensure your promotion and distribution yourself.

LIVE FROM YOUR PEN?

Quite a few authors can afford to make a living from their writing. In 2023, around 5,000 authors, translators, and illustrators were affiliated to AGESSA, the social security for authors. The criterion for being eligible for this affiliation is to earn at least 8,649 euros per year, which therefore does not mean that everyone makes a living from their pen. The median income of affiliates is around 22,000 euros and varies greatly depending on the literary genre since the average earnings of these authors is 12,200 euros in general literature compared to 2,426 euros for authors of children's literature . 78.5% of affiliates say that writing is their main source of income, but many have another job or carry out a complementary activity.

As you will have understood, it is impossible to translate the average remuneration of authors into a precise figure, the publishing houses being discreet on this subject and the realities being extremely different from one writer to another.

However, we hope that these few figures will have given you a more precise idea of ​​how author remuneration works. To learn more about how an author's income can change from book to book, we can't recommend enough listening to a few episodes of Arte Radio's Bookmakers podcast , in which the host asks systematically informs the guest writer of the amount of advances he received for his various books. We are sometimes surprised at how far we have come!