SINGAPORE: As an author, one question I always get when I give talks at secondary schools is: How much does an author earn?
I usually smile and say, “It can vary widely for different authors and well, most of us are not James Patterson or Stephen King.”
Authors earn royalties, which means we get a small percentage from every book sold. In Singapore and globally, royalties typically fall between 5 to 15 per cent of the book’s selling price. That price could be based on the gross retail price or a net figure after costs.
So if a book sells for S$20, a 10 per cent royalty earns you S$2 per book. And if that royalty is based on the net price, it’s even less.
Then there’s the big question: How many books can an author sell? That depends on many things – whether the book is sold locally or internationally, how many titles the author has, their audience reach. But generally speaking, lifetime sales often range from a few hundred to a few thousand copies.
Some books never even sell out their first print run of 1,000 copies or less. That first advance – which is basically a prepayment of royalties for a projected number of sales – might end up being the only money an author ever sees from their book. They only earn more once their book has “earned out” the advance.
So when aspiring writers ask if this is a sustainable career, my answer is: Honestly, not usually; many authors write while holding down a full-time job.
Of course, there are occasional headlines about Singaporean authors landing lucrative book deals overseas. Jemimah Wei’s The Original Daughter recently sold at auction for more than US$500,000.
While that’s incredibly inspiring, it’s also rare. For most writers, that kind of story is more fairy tale than norm.
