Are you an author? please read this.

Hola a todos,
I was just wondering about how much authors (in general, and for IT books) get paid. Do they get, say 20% of the books price for each book sold? Or maybe they get paid an initial remuneration, plus bonus for the books sold, or just get a big check by a publishing house to have the full rights?
Well I know that it is variant, but since there are many authors in this forum, I though that asking this question here would give me a good idea about IT books.
I am thinking about it since I find it very very hard to write a small report/ paper, and never feels like I have finished writing it; so I was thinking that writing books is a damn hard and time consuming task, and want to hear if it pays back the effort. (maybe you get more credibility, and better customers..)
I want to know about product specific books like Eclipse: Step by Step by Joe Pluta (Hi Joe), or Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications by Michael Juntao Yuan (Hi Michael), or generic (yet specific to a java technology book) like Enterprise JavaBeans by Richard Monson-Haefel.
Don�t worry guys, I don�t wanna compete, just for curiosity, and if you don�t wanna give us numbers, just give us an idea.
Thanking in advance.. And awaiting your reply!

Originally posted by Tonny Tssagovic:
Do they get, say 20% of the books price for each book sold?

Excuse me while I wipe the coffee off my monitor.
Ha, ha. 20%! That was a good laugh. Hoo boy! 20%!

There's some variability, but a typical tech-book deal is more in the neighborhood of 10-15% of net receipts; net receipts are in the neighborhood of 50% of cover price, so you're looking at something like 5-7% of list going to the author(s).
Some books -- especially "Dummies" type books -- are indeed done as works-for-hire, with the author getting a set fee for unlimited sales. The set fee is commensurate with what an author would typically get for a royalty-based contract for a similar book.
Very, very few people make a living writing technical books -- it's usually just a labor of love. Virtually no-one gets rich doing it.

Virtually no-one gets rich doing it.
Well, Bert and Kathy do, but they're actually highly advanced author-bots from the future stranded in our timespace continuum and trying to advance Earth's technology enough so they can rebuild their dimensional transport device and get home.
Joe

I believe it is something like 5 - 7% - varies for hardbacks and paperbacks.
As for advances, I was once offered �400 advance against sales for a book idea. The publishing business has been feeling the pinch for a long time.

Unless you are the next Daniel Steele ( or god forbid Jeffrey Archer) it is not a route to riches.

Thanks for the reply Ernest and Joe..

This raises another question, what is the minimum of books that the publisher is wwilling to publish.. assuming that I want to write a book about a very specific technology that interests only few people, will they just go for it? and the time it takes, I can purchase books on Amazon that will be published in 2005

Joe, no reply from you? :roll:
How about other authors, are they ashamed to let us know they became rich, or are afraid ppl just start competing?

Slightly off topic - A first novel in hardback will be doing well if it sells two or three thousand copies. A lot of textbooks in Maths related to undergraduate courses may sell as few as 200 copies.

Thanks for the reply Steven

I was reading another thread while u posted your message

As a co-author of a couple of Java certification book I can confirm it is certainly not a get rich quick scheme. Actually it is not much of "fund my two beers on a Friday night scheme". However there I have a Java Certificaiton Book (not one I was involved in) on my shelf that says the first edition sold over 100,000 copies, so assuming that the authors were on a reasonable deal, some authors at some times have made a tidy sum.

Virtually no-one gets rich doing it.
Well, Bert and Kathy do...

phhhhht! (now my coffee's spewing onto my monitor)
Well, we're giving it our best, and we *might* get a sort of average living out of the deal. Plus, we've got a great publisher, and there are lots of "not so great" publishers out there!
We're doing it more for the freedom it allows us; we're hoping to soon be submitting chapters from places like the Yukon or Ojai! Plus it is very gratifying, even the bad reviews let us know we're having some sort of affect

.
Now David Pogue on the other hand... :roll:
Bert
p.s. Joe, thanks for your kind words.
[ January 21, 2004: Message edited by: Bert Bates ]

Originally posted by Joe Pluta:
Virtually no-one gets rich doing it.
Well, Bert and Kathy do, but they're actually highly advanced author-bots from the future stranded in our timespace continuum and trying to advance Earth's technology enough so they can rebuild their dimensional transport device and get home.
Joe

, and I thought I understood english

I'm moving this to the Bunkhouse Porch. Please post any follow-ups there.

By the way Tonny... hi back to you!

Joe

The money in technical writing certainly isn't in publishing third-party books, at least not alone. To make it work, you need a nook to sell, pick up some speaking engagements (i.e., honoraria) at big conferences, and even then find some other work (like training) to really make one good year. The exceptions are quite rare. Long-lived, profitable successes in this field are virtually unheard of.

Totally unrelated to not so good publishers, what exactly happened to wrox?
There never was a full explanation. Tho' I did see comments by authors Jacqui Barber and Tom Kyte about their premature demise.
I had often seem Wrox advertising for new staff at their Birmingham (UK) office.

Originally posted by Tonny Tssagovic:
... what is the minimum of books that the publisher is willing to publish.. assuming that I want to write a book about a very specific technology that interests only few people, will they just go for it?

From what I've heard, most technology publishers are happy if they make back the advance (a few thousand dollars) on a book.
The royalty percentages vary based on who you are and what you've done, but the 5%-7% figure is a good one. A few bucks a book, perhaps. An average computer book sells 10,000 copies; 25,000 and up is considered a best-seller. Doing the math, you can figure that some people (the certification guys at 100,000 copies) are doing quite well. For the less talented like myself, it's a nice bit of money, but not enough to live on.
-Jeff-

Originally posted by Steven Broadbent:
There never was a full explanation. Tho' I did see comments by authors Jacqui Barber and Tom Kyte about their premature demise.

I was fortunate enough to have cashed the check before they went bankrupt. My understanding was it was too much inventory and not enough sales. I don't think Wrox was ever very profitable but with the dotcom crash they got caught with too many books they couldn't sell.

Bert and I DO know people who are making a *really good* living doing nothing but computer books, but they are both good *and* prolific, and--most importantly--they've been doing it a long time. Bert and I are still very new to this, so we're not in that "really good living" category, but this IS our only source of income. This is *virtually* all we do now (the Sun projects we do are very small). But our earnings are more like a school teacher's wages

In the tech book world, I think unless you're David Pogue or Lynda Weinman, you probably aren't going to get rich.
We do this because we love it, and for the freedom. As people who love teaching and helping people learn, we get to help (potentially) a lot more people through books than we do through instructor-led classes. And even though you don't get the kind of face-to-face feedback that you get in the classroom (and I do miss that), the email and online discussions are *very* gratifying. So, maybe a few years ago during the bubble we'd be doing quite well having best-selling computer books... but those days are not here. So unless you're doing consumer books that reach a much wider audience (like David and Lynda), then there is only so much you can sell.
But many book authors do write books for other reasons -- many of the more successful ones are doing what Michael suggested... using it as a springboard to other projects including teaching and consulting, etc. While that was our original intention, we found that we could not do both right now, and with O'Reilly's nudging, we all agreed that we should focus all of our energy right now on nothing but books. We now have co-authors on several book projects, and several of them are using it as a way to make a name for themselves in a particular subject area, or just to do something different and have fun, even though they have no intention of doing any other books.
It really has to be a labor of love, I think. Fortunately, we love it and we'd do it even if we weren't able to live off it. We just wouldn't be able to do as many, or get them out as quickly.
cheers,
Kathy

It's a pity that you guys decided to put the teaching on the back burner. I really beieve it's time technical teaching needs a revamp just as you decided that technical books did.
Off course it makes sense to first get a sound reputation with your books, but please DO not forget to put a % of your time and energy, if you have any left towards potential courses.

Originally posted by Jeff Langr:

From what I've heard, most technology publishers are happy if they make back the advance (a few thousand dollars) on a book.
The royalty percentages vary based on who you are and what you've done, but the 5%-7% figure is a good one. A few bucks a book, perhaps. An average computer book sells 10,000 copies; 25,000 and up is considered a best-seller. Doing the math, you can figure that some people (the certification guys at 100,000 copies) are doing quite well. For the less talented like myself, it's a nice bit of money, but not enough to live on.
-Jeff-

Actually, the figure for "average" or "pretty good" varies by publisher. For instance, 10,0000 is considered pretty good by Addison-Wesley or Prentice-Hall. It is considered abysmal by O'Reilly (having been in this position with both publishers by the way...)
Kyle

Yeah, I think Kyle is right about the figures. 10,000 would definitely be abysmal at O'Reilly! They hope you'll sell 10,000 in the first quarter. Although it is true that all publishers, O'Reilly included, may want a book that is too niche to ever sell many copies -- but they want it because it is strategic or fills out a line or something, but overall, the goal is to find books that will appeal to a large enough number of readers to make everyone a little happy -- the publisher, the booksellers, the readers, and of course the author

cheers,
Kathy