12 ms·

Does anyone know how much money he gets from every book / ebook? I think buying it is, at least for some people, very much a support Snowden thought.

ramraj07 7y ago
I vaguely remember 10% as a ballpark for most authors
- iandinwoodie 7y ago
  What happens to the other 90%? Is this typical for book authors?
  - faet 7y ago
    It is very typical. Assuming Print on Demand w/ amazon. He's not doing that but we'll just assume to keep it easy. And list price of $24 Amazon takes $5 to print Amazon takes $9.60 royalty That leaves $9.40 or 40% available. Of that Macmillan takes their cut to cover editing, covers, advertising, etc. And what is left is probably $2.40 for each sale. For Self published folks (going eBooks this time). Assuming you list for $10 and get a 70% royalty from amazon. You'll earn $7 for each sale. But, then once you factor in advertising (on amazon which goes to amazon), your earnings for each book drop to maybe a 5-30% royalty range. And that assumes you can sell your book for $10, which most self published cannot. I have friends who sell $10k worth of eBooks/mo who make $2k/mo. So 80% goes to amazon and 20% goes to them.
    - iandinwoodie 7y ago
      That's insane. Thank you for the detailed insight.
    - anchpop 7y ago
      He's using a traditional publisher which means he likely got a decent advance. Even if he didn't, he was likely able to negotiate a better deal than most authors because of his fame
xur17 7y ago
Is there any way to buy the ebook directly (or at a bare minimum without drm)?
- madkangas 7y ago
  (Macmillan employee) To my knowledge, no and probably no. I'll inquire. I'm aware that it's available at Kobo in EPUB format but that includes Adobe DRM. https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/permanent-record-7 https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/permanent-record-7
  - xur17 7y ago
    Thank you for the response. Sad to hear that it's only available with drm. It's going to show up on torrent sites within days no matter what, so as always honest consumers are the ones that lose.
    - kevingrahl 7y ago
      I mean you could always buy the DRM’d ebook somewhere if you wish to support the book financially and then download a DRM free ePub from Libgen or via torrent. That’s what I did.
  - abawany 7y ago
    It is available on the Google Play store as an ePub as well with likely DRM added as well. I ordered from there.
grecy 7y ago
I'm self published on Amazon and can speak to that, but I see that this is actually published by a publisher (Metropolitan Books) In that case, from what I have learned from speaking to a few NYT Best selling authors, he's getting peanuts per sale, though it's very likely he got an advance in the range of $50k. He won't actually get a cent from sales until his share goes above whatever his advance was.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
  > an advance in the range of $50k That... would not be very much for a book that can be expected to generate hundreds of thousands of sales.
  - grecy 7y ago
    I agree. One of the NYT best selling authors I spoke to over beers told me at most he can hope to get in the range of $200k in his lifetime for his book that was top of the charts for a significant amount of time, and continues to be very, very famous in it's niche. i.e. Writing for a publisher sucks.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    An "advance" is just that: payment advanced against projected sales, and hence, per-volume royalties. The publisher generally calculates the advance based on projected sales, and that's often all the money an author will see, though if an advance is "earned out" (sales exceed the projection), the author can earn additional royalty payments based on a percentage of the per-volume sales price. The usually cited figure is 10%, though this may vary. TL;DR: Snowden is guaranteed the advance, but may earn more. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/book-advances-and-royalties-2799832 https://www.thebalancecareers.com/book-advances-and-royaltie...
roasm 7y ago
The publisher Metropolitan Books looks like it's part of Macmillan so they're likely a traditional publisher, which suggests he got a pretty healthy advance on the book because of his fame. I would also guess that even if he sold enough books to earn out the advance, his take on each incremental book is really small as the publisher took most of the financial risk with the advance itself.
- madkangas 7y ago
  (Macmillan employee) Confirming, it is a Macmillan title. Metropolitan Books is a Macmillan imprint. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250237231 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250237231
excursionist 7y ago
https://edwardsnowden.com/donate/ https://edwardsnowden.com/donate/

ramraj07 7y ago

I vaguely remember 10% as a ballpark for most authors

iandinwoodie 7y ago
What happens to the other 90%? Is this typical for book authors?
- faet 7y ago
  It is very typical. Assuming Print on Demand w/ amazon. He's not doing that but we'll just assume to keep it easy. And list price of $24 Amazon takes $5 to print Amazon takes $9.60 royalty That leaves $9.40 or 40% available. Of that Macmillan takes their cut to cover editing, covers, advertising, etc. And what is left is probably $2.40 for each sale. For Self published folks (going eBooks this time). Assuming you list for $10 and get a 70% royalty from amazon. You'll earn $7 for each sale. But, then once you factor in advertising (on amazon which goes to amazon), your earnings for each book drop to maybe a 5-30% royalty range. And that assumes you can sell your book for $10, which most self published cannot. I have friends who sell $10k worth of eBooks/mo who make $2k/mo. So 80% goes to amazon and 20% goes to them.
  - iandinwoodie 7y ago
    That's insane. Thank you for the detailed insight.
  - anchpop 7y ago
    He's using a traditional publisher which means he likely got a decent advance. Even if he didn't, he was likely able to negotiate a better deal than most authors because of his fame

xur17 7y ago

Is there any way to buy the ebook directly (or at a bare minimum without drm)?

madkangas 7y ago
(Macmillan employee) To my knowledge, no and probably no. I'll inquire. I'm aware that it's available at Kobo in EPUB format but that includes Adobe DRM. https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/permanent-record-7 https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/permanent-record-7
- xur17 7y ago
  Thank you for the response. Sad to hear that it's only available with drm. It's going to show up on torrent sites within days no matter what, so as always honest consumers are the ones that lose.
  - kevingrahl 7y ago
    I mean you could always buy the DRM’d ebook somewhere if you wish to support the book financially and then download a DRM free ePub from Libgen or via torrent. That’s what I did.
- abawany 7y ago
  It is available on the Google Play store as an ePub as well with likely DRM added as well. I ordered from there.

grecy 7y ago

I'm self published on Amazon and can speak to that, but I see that this is actually published by a publisher (Metropolitan Books) In that case, from what I have learned from speaking to a few NYT Best selling authors, he's getting peanuts per sale, though it's very likely he got an advance in the range of $50k. He won't actually get a cent from sales until his share goes above whatever his advance was.

tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
> an advance in the range of $50k That... would not be very much for a book that can be expected to generate hundreds of thousands of sales.
- grecy 7y ago
  I agree. One of the NYT best selling authors I spoke to over beers told me at most he can hope to get in the range of $200k in his lifetime for his book that was top of the charts for a significant amount of time, and continues to be very, very famous in it's niche. i.e. Writing for a publisher sucks.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  An "advance" is just that: payment advanced against projected sales, and hence, per-volume royalties. The publisher generally calculates the advance based on projected sales, and that's often all the money an author will see, though if an advance is "earned out" (sales exceed the projection), the author can earn additional royalty payments based on a percentage of the per-volume sales price. The usually cited figure is 10%, though this may vary. TL;DR: Snowden is guaranteed the advance, but may earn more. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/book-advances-and-royalties-2799832 https://www.thebalancecareers.com/book-advances-and-royaltie...

roasm 7y ago

The publisher Metropolitan Books looks like it's part of Macmillan so they're likely a traditional publisher, which suggests he got a pretty healthy advance on the book because of his fame. I would also guess that even if he sold enough books to earn out the advance, his take on each incremental book is really small as the publisher took most of the financial risk with the advance itself.

madkangas 7y ago
(Macmillan employee) Confirming, it is a Macmillan title. Metropolitan Books is a Macmillan imprint. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250237231 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250237231

excursionist 7y ago

https://edwardsnowden.com/donate/ https://edwardsnowden.com/donate/