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.