Book Publishing Economics: Royalties, Print Costs, Advances & Self-Publishing
Run the numbers of a fictional novel: unit economics by format, royalties on list vs net with escalators, advance earn-out, print runs and returns reserves, format margins, self-publishing break-even, a title P&L waterfall and backlist lifetime value, in 8 graded labs. Illustrative figures; not affiliated with any publisher or platform.
The first lesson is free — no account needed.
About this course
A book publishing economics course that runs the numbers of one fictional novel, Mara Quill's The Salt Orchard at Lanternfield Press, in a spreadsheet, for authors, agents, editors, publishing staff and self-publishers. You take four formats from list price through the retailer discount to what the publisher receives and price printing by page count, calculate royalties on list price and on net receipts with a hardcover escalator, split a 45,000 advance into tranches and find the copies needed to earn it out, size a print run for returns and run a reserve against returns, compare margins by format, find the break-even of a self-published novella with two ebook royalty tiers and print-on-demand, build a title P&L as a waterfall and value the backlist. Illustrative figures, with no affiliation with any publisher, retailer or platform, and not legal advice. The first lab is free.
Lessons
- Unit Economics of a Print Book: List Price, Discount & Print CostFree
- Author Royalties: On List Price vs Net Receipts & Escalators Pro
- The Advance: Tranches, Earn-Out Copies & the Royalty Statement Pro
- Print Run Sizing, Unit Cost & the Reserve against Returns Pro
- Hardcover, Paperback, Ebook or Audiobook? Margins by Format Pro
- Self-Publishing: Royalty Tiers, Delivery Fees, Print-on-Demand & Break-Even Pro
- The Title P&L: From Revenue to Net Profit, with a Waterfall Chart Pro
- Frontlist to Backlist: Sales Decay & Lifetime Value of a Title Pro