Originally Posted by kane

I know far too well how authors are paid. I have a development deal with a publisher for a book I am finishing up.

Like you said most will not see more money than their advance but that is because of sales. For example a typical deal might bring an author $1.50 per hardback sold and 50-75 cents per paperback. If they got a 20K advance then they sell 100K hardbacks and 300K paperbacks they are doing pretty well and will get some nice royalty checks, not to mention a much larger advance for the next book. If they get a 20K advance then sell 500 hardbacks and 2K paperbacks they don't make back the advance money.

So they don't make more because of sales. In the music business the artists get a decent rate (often around $1 per cd sold) but they have to pay for everything from their royalties and the labels often use shady accounting practices to hide profits so that they don't pay royalties. Read a book called Hit Men it is about the behind the scenes world of the music industry and you will see just how shady some of these guys are.