How we calculate royalties

Who	When	Number	gross	print	Net
L	Nov-18	7	48	36.78	11.22
B	Nov-18	15	101.3	58.85	42.4
W	Nov-18	6	40.5	29.44	11.06
C	Nov-18	5	33.75	23.55	10.2
R	Nov-18	5	33.75	23.55	10.2
R	Nov-18	4	27	20.02	6.98
Al	Nov-18	1	8.25	6.83	1.42
F	Nov-18	5	33.75	23.55	10.2
G	Nov-18	30	202.5	118.94	83.56
Celebration event	Nov-18	20	120	76	44
LS US	Nov-18	1			2.48
LS UK	Nov-18	1			2.49
Amazon UK	Nov-18	3			3.9
W	06-Dec-18	3	20.25	7.29	12.96
I	18-Dec-18	1	8.25	6.83	1.42
LSUK	31/12/2108	6			14.94

Who, when and number are probably self-explanatory. Gross is the amount paid by individuals ordering directly with us. Print is the price we pay for printing and shipping. Net is the amount per order we receive after all costs have been paid. Note there are no gross amounts for receipts from Amazon and Lightning Source. We pay nothing out in advance. The downside of the latter is that we don’t receive the payment until 90 days later.  

The second half of the spread sheet looks like this (note this is taken form a different example):  

Net	royalty	profit		RA
11.22	4.7685	4.7685		6.4515
42.4	18.02	18.02		24.38
11.06	4.7005	4.7005		6.3595
10.2	4.335	4.335		5.865
10.2	4.335	4.335		5.865
6.98	2.9665	2.9665		4.0135
1.42	0.6035	0.6035		0.8165
10.2	4.335	4.335		5.865
83.56	35.513	35.513		48.047
44	18.7	18.7		25.3
2.48	1.054	1.054		1.426
2.49	1.05825	1.05825		1.43175
3.9	1.6575	1.6575		2.2425
12.96	5.508	5.508		7.452
1.42	0.6035	0.6035		0.8165
14.94	6.3495	6.3495		8.5905

At the end of the year, 31 December, the royalties are totted up and divided by the number of authors in a book. However, they are not paid until the end of March to allow for the 90 day delay.

The “profit” is used to offset set-up costs. Once those are covered, any profit is shared between the partners. At the moment we pay ourselves no wage for editing, designing and marketing books. However, changes are afoot – watch out for the next post.                 

Overheads on producing books

In all of the imprints we manage we award authors 50% of the profit on each unit sold even before we have recovered the overheads on the book. We also allow authors to purchase books at 75% of our recommended retail price and if they can afford to buy 50 or more in one go, at cost plus 10%.     

We try to be as transparent as we can and each month we publish charts showing the performance of our books. These are only for ones that have achieved sales in this calendar year.

What are the overheads?

These are the payments we have to make per title regardless of how many books we sell.

The chart below shows overhead costs for one book. This is found at the top of each book performance statement.

Distribution	8.4	4.77
IPG	4.89	18.02
Set up	71	4.7
ALDL	23.55	5.87
BL	9.48	5.87
		2.97
		0.63
		4.33
		35.51
		18.7
		1.054
		1.06
		1.66
		5.51
		0.6
		6.35
	117.32	117.604

Here is the key to the chart:

Distribution

We pay this annually per title. This hooks the book up to distributors and online bookshops world-wide. This includes companies like Ingrams, Gardners, Bertrams and retailers such as Waterstones, Amazon and the Book Depositary. All of our books have an ISBN, so any bookshop should be able to order a copy. We prefer to work through distributors. We find working directly with bookshops problematic.  However, authors can do this themselves if they purchase an Authors’ Kit (50+ books at cost plus 10%) and can offer the retailer a 40% discount. We offer retailers 35% discount.

IPG

The Independent Publishers Guild. We pay an annual fee to this and divide it among all the books we publish. We gain much useful information from the Guild and they run many events and training sessions that are extremely useful. The contribution per book is going down a little each year – it is being divided between more titles year on year. However, the annual fee goes up in line with inflation.

Set up

This represents a standard fee for set-up of paperbacks and includes Lightning Source  sending us a proof copy for £21. They offer us an electronic proof but we prefer to see the book in the flesh. This is one-off fee. However, if we need to make any alterations to the book we have to pay the set-up fees all over again. Ironically the set-up fee for full colour hardbacks can be less, and so far has been. It could also come out as more – we get a custom set-up fee for those.  

ALDL

Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries. We have to send five copies to the agency.  These are then redistributed to legal deposit libraries: The Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Library of Trinity College Dublin and the National Library of Wales. 

This is a one-off expense in the first year of publication. It varies from book to book depending on the size of the book and therefore printing and shipping costs.

BL

British Library. We have to send one copy of the book to the British Library. This is again a one off expense in the first year of publication and again varies according to the size of the book.

Company gains

The company takes the other 50% of the profit. These amounts are shown in the right hand column. You will see that this book has covered its costs – just. Will it cover the IPG and Distribution cost in its second year? (In fact it has!)                            

    

How Long Does It Take to Publish a Book?

One of our writers recently asked me how long it take to publish a book.

Well we have three stages of editing for most of our works and each stage takes six hours. That probably stretches over two to three working days as we have other things to do as well. The text goes back to the writer so that they can react to our comments. That will probably take them also about six hours spread over three days or so. Then the text has to join a queue.

You can always follow our work here. I recommend this even if you’re not published by us.  

Generally for stories in our anthologies we only have two edits and a proof-read but for collections of short stories and longer texts we will do the all-important Edit 1. We’ll make a general comment about each story and some general comments about the writing. We’re looking at structure, story shape, characterisation, narrative balance, tension, pace and setting. We ask the authors to take their time on this edit. There’s also little point in doing a copy edit or line edit until this one is right.

Next comes a closer look at the details. Do the characters stay in character? Does the dialogue work? Is there repetition or cliché? We may take another look at narrative balance. Is the writer showing more than telling and if they are telling is this appropriate? What about the rhythm of the prose? Is there a good mixture of shorter and longer sentences?

Last we’re looking very closely at the actual language.

Then the book has to be designed. Some are more straight-forward than others. We’ve recently worked on a highly illustrated book and got it right on Kindle and even Kindle read on an iPhone. Not easy!  

Then the book must be proof-read three times after it is camera ready.  

There are some administrative tasks to be performed.

We’re currently allowing eighteen months. But we’re also looking at training more editors and publicists so we may be able to speed up the process.                

Should you sign up for a publisher’s newsletter?

As a writer I sign up for several – and only read a few of them now and then. I keep them coming because they occasionally contain one tiny piece of information that is invaluable for me personally.  

I also produce a newsletter for each of the imprints that I handle. Some of the information is generic but some of it is specific to a particular imprint. Yes, I include news of new titles but most of what is in the newsletter is information for authors.

I have other newsletters for readers and these do discuss titles in more detail.      

What our newsletters contain

We include

·         New calls for submissions

·         Success stories from our writers  - even if they’re published elsewhere

·         News about technical issues

·         News about marketing issues and opportunities

·         News about events and courses we’re running

·         A link to where news of book sales is stored  

·         A link to royalty statements

Why not put all of this on a web site?

Most of it is actually on the web site. A few items are only for authors - e.g. the list  about book performance and certain events.

Frequency and rationale of newsletters

I send our newsletters out once a month. Very, very occasionally I’ll send out a “stop press” announcement if something urgent or very exciting comes up but I do avoid this if possible.

I try to put everything into a newsletter and cover all the queries that our authors might have. I’m handling about 200 authors and answering different queries several times over would just be too time-consuming.

We also have a secret Facebook group where authors can raise matters promptly.  Sometimes they answer each other’s queries and I don’t have to worry. I also test out ideas here. Should we have a Writers’ Retreat? Would they like to take part in a course on editing? What do they think of paid for submissions? Much of what is suggested here feeds into the newsletters.

Why I recommend that you should sign up and stay signed up

The newsletter is the easiest way I can get information to you. There are certain parts  so of the letter that are repeated each month – such as the invitation to join my Dream Team but at least you will know where to find that information. The delete button can be very handy.

I do have to bite my tongue when I sometimes get a query or a submission and the applicant has declined signing up to the newsletter. A comfort here is that it is usually clear that the applicant has not read the submission guidelines correctly. Would we want to work with that author anyway?

Every time newsletters go out we get one or two unsubscribes. They’re usually people we’ve not had a lot of interaction with anyway. Occasionally it’s because they receive more than one newsletter, because they’re published by several of our imprints, and they’re limiting themselves to the optimum one. Fair enough. We’ll also get a few more people signing up to other lists – each newsletter includes a list of the other items that may be of interest to writers.

It’s fine for us too. We’re still using Mailchimp for free. We won’t mind paying in the near future but we do want to be sure that what we send out is really useful to the recipients.

One more thing

On this very blog I keep track of the progress on publications. See the Work Flow page. This is public-facing page though probably only of interest to those who are in process with us. But you may like to watch it for a while if you are thinking of publishing with us.

So, should you?

I think you should.                     

Here’s what’s on offer

Bridge House Authors For all those published by Bridge House or interested in being published by us. General news about the imprint. News for writers. Link to book performance. Sign up here.

CaféLit Writers For all those published by CaféLit. General news about the imprint. News for writers. Link to book performance. News about the Creative Café Project. Sign up here.

Chapeltown Authors For all those published by Chapeltown or interested in being published by us.  General news about the imprint. News for writers. Link to book performance. Sign up here.  

Chapeltown Books News about our books and our authors. Sign up here.

The Creative Café Project  News about the project and CaféLit – for the consumer rather than for the producer.  Sign up here.   

Gill’s News: News about my writing, general news about what the imprints are doing, news about other writers I know, news about the Creative Café Project, a recommended read, and a giveaway each month. Find it here.   

Opportunities List Remember I keep a full list of vetted opportunities on my writing blog. See them here. New ones are added several times a day. Roughly once a month I go through it and take out all of the out of date ones. At that point I send it out to a list. If you would like to be on that list, sign up here.  

Pushing Boundaries, Flying Higher News about conferences and workshops to do with the young adult novel. (infrequent postings) Sign up here.  

Red Telephone Authors For all those published by The Red Telephone or interested in being published by us.  General news about the imprint. News for writers. Link to book performance. Sign up here.

Schellberg Cycle Workshop News Offers and news of events to do with Schellberg Cycle workshops. Sign up here.  

School Visits Offers and news of school visits. Sign up here.

Red Telephone Books News about our books and our authors. Sign up here.

A Publisher’s Perspective Here I blog as a publisher. Access this here.   

The Creative Café Project Listings and reviews of creative cafés. See them here.   

CaféLit Stories Find these here

Gill James Writer All about writing and about my books. View this here.

Gill’s Recommended Reads Find information here about books that have taken me out of my editor’s head.   

Gill’s Sample Fiction Read some of my fiction here.

The House on Schellberg Street All about my Schellberg project. Read it here.

Writing Teacher All about teaching creative writing.  Some creative writing exercises. Access this here.     

Books Books Books Weekly offers on all of our books.  Find them here.