I am completely new to this. I have written a story for children which I submitted to Olympia Publishers. They have offered me a contributory contract with £2500 towards costs and 20% royalties. I have not got a clue if this is good or not. This is one story but I have already got a follow up in the planning so want to get this right for me and my family. Any advice is welcome. What do I do next please?
Jimmy, you're right - I'm no good with numbers!
The principle is the same though - you'll never recoup that outlay. It's all going into the publisher's pocket.
I've been looking into book pricing recently - thank goodness for their automatic reckoner! - and it is mroe complicated than it appears. Does the upfront cost here cover all publication of the book, or do they take a cut for each one published on top? That should be in the contract.
Self publishers and vanity publishers are not the same thing, Jeremy. See this:
https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/advice/255/self-publishing/considering-self-publishing/self-publishing-vs-vanity-publishing-confused
When your publisher offers you a contract, do not sign it without taking expert legal advice.
If you are foolish enough to do so, you will probably find that you have signed all your rights away, and that you're tied to a long book deal with them.
You should avoid vanity publishers, or other types of publisher that want to charge you money to produce your book.
It is always advisable to first try and hook an agent, then let them negotiate on your behalf.
Royalties are usually agreed at between 8-12 per cent a copy for a would-be author.
It's important to realise that royalties are not based on the jacket price of your book.
Publishers give huge discounts of 50-65 per cent of the jacket price to wholesalers and book clubs.
Say your book is priced at £5, with a 50 per cent discount to a wholesaler, you would receive 25p a copy. That's £250 for every thousand copies, £25.000 for a 100,000 copies, so don't pack up your day job.
I hope that helps.
Good luck.
La Gr@not@ DOES offer a contribution option. But it's just that: an option. And it's because of this:
Larger print-runs mean that each copy works out cheaper. Let's take the example of my own book, "Not Now, Daddy!"
For 50 hardback copies of this book, we paid the printers 486€. That's 9·72€ each copy. Bookstores take 30% of the retail price, which forces us to price the book at 15€ (leaving us a profit/copy of just 78c!... minus distribution costs). Which nobody wants to pay for a children's picture book, even if it is in hardback. (We sell some copies at a reduced price, avoiding the stores' 30% skimming. We offer it on our web-site @ 13€. And we sell more copies in paperback @ 10€.)
Now, if we could AFFORD to order a larger print-run, 1,000 hardback copies (of the same book, printed by the same company) would cost us 2,261€ (less than 2·27€ each) and we could afford to price them at 8 or 10€... and perhaps sell more. Certainly there would be a larger profit per book.
But we don't have that kind of money to risk on each project. Because you can't GUARANTEE that you will sell 1,000 copies of a picture book for children... even if it HAS been called by one critic - a former primary-school teacher - "the most original children's book that I have ever seen".
Now, if you're SURE that - together - we can sell 1,000 copies of your book, and want to invest, say £2500, La Gr@not@ would invest the same amount as we usually do; we could order a print-run of 1,000; send you 400 copies to sit in your garage and rot (or get distributed by you); and try to sell the remaining 600 copies via our web-site. That's 400 actual, hardback copies totally under your control, as opposed to absolutely nothing with - for example - Olympia.
Together, we decide what the retail price will be. You pay us 60% of that retail price + shipping costs for each copy that you receive. BUT remember that
a) you don't actually pay us anything at this point. This price is deducted from your original investment.
b) you get 100% of the profits if you manage to sell them - as opposed to giving free copies to your friends-and-relations. Meaning that you could offer - for example - a 20% discount on the official retail price and STILL make a profit. AND you get a hefty chunk of the profits on the copies that we manage to sell.)
And here's the crux: WE wouldn't touch a cent of profit until YOU recouped your investment!
And remember that that's just an option. If you don't wish to risk your money, we risk ours... on a smaller print-run.