Thursday 20 June 2019

Making invisible costs visible



When in my last post I discussed how we work out royalties I also showed some of the overhead costs. However there are some costs that are currently not visible.

Because we risk editing, designing, proofing and marketing on you and we currently do this in-house these do not show up on our royalty statements. We just share the profit once the book is in profit.

However, for some imprints we’re starting to employ other commissioning editors, editors, designers, proof-readers and marketeers. We’re going to pay these royalties as well but will give them an advance:
commissioning editors £90
editors £180
designers, £180
proof-readers £90
marketeers £180

It seems only fair then to award writers an advance as well, which will be £180. We shall call this an advance royalty. It will still only be paid once the individual writer accrues £10 or more and will be set against further royalties.
  

So the new sheet may look like this:    
New Book 2019







Set-up
71
19.025

Distribution 2019
8.4
3.251

The British Library
9.51
2.51

ALDL
23.45
2.141

IPG
4.5
1.308569



34.26

selection
90


ediitng
180


design
180


markeitng
180


proof reading
90






authors' advance
180







1016.86
62.49557
954.3644
   
Again, the penultimate column shows profits from books sold.  




The second half of the spread sheet looks like this:
profit
proof reader
marketer
designer
editor
selector
company
RA

=profit /8
= (profit/ 8)*2
=(profit/2)*8
=(profit/2)*8
=profit /8
=profit /8

3.251
0.406375
0.81275
0.81275
0.81275
0.406375
0.406375
3.251
2.51
0.31375
0.6275
0.6275
0.6275
0.31375
0.31375
2.51
2.141
0.267625
0.53525
0.53525
0.53525
0.267625
0.267625
2.141
1.308569
0.163571125
0.327142
0.327142
0.327142
0.16357113
0.16357113
1.308569
   
The profit that goes to the company will cover admin and provide float.  

There will be an impact too on individual royalty sheets. These will look like this in the future.

J Doe

Advances  paid
Royalties earned


Editors fee
180
477





2.302642




180
479.3026
299.3026


This is for a writer who also works as an editor. S/he has received a £180 advance for editing work. S/he has earned £479.30 on books she has written and edited. We take off the advance to give £299.30.