How Much Money Does A New York Times Bestseller Make - Part 2

Lynn Viehl, author of Twilight Fall, a New York Times mass market bestseller, was kind enough to share her first two royalty statements on her blog. I posted about the first royalty statement here.

You can find the information about her second statement here.

There are a few things that I wanted to highlight about her second blog post:

#1. The net sales units are 61,663 copies
#2. According to the statement, the author made a net amount of $30,155.69. HOWEVER, after you subtract her agent's commission and taxes, the amount she actually kept for herself was $24,517.36!
#3. If she were forced to live solely upon the $24,517.36, for her family of four for one year, she would only be slightly above the US poverty level! :-(
#4. The author mentioned that she wondered how her numbers compared to other New York Times mass market bestsellers. It's hard to say because other authors don't offer up this information, publishers don't offer up this information, or, if they do, it's always done anonymously!
#5. She still hasn't earned out her $50,000 advance yet!

I'd like to take a moment to tell what I heard about advances and earning out recently. I was listening to the CDs from the last American Christian Fiction Writers Conference. One of the workshops was on advances. I heard an industry professional state that more than 80% of the advances they pay DON'T earn out! That's shocking! I'm thinking that Lynn's numbers might be comparable to other authors.

I'd like to publicly thank Lynn for offering this information to her blog readers. She's answered questions that I've often wondered about.

~Cecelia Dowdy~