I think there's some potential for bias/skew there. The majority of books sold are published under large deals with established authors. There's a long tail end

I think there's some potential for bias/skew there. The majority of books sold are published under large deals with established authors. There's a long tail end of books published by less well-known authors under less favourable deals. It's possible (and I haven't looked at these numbers myself) that statistics presented make the publishing industry look better. Anecdotally I've read many negative things about the publishing industry and compensation for less established authors. Additionally, if we're talking about averages and not medians, the outliers are going to significantly increase that (J.K. Rowling might earn $3 on a book sale for her books published in the last 15 years, and her books might constitute 1% of all books sold in that period, but that's very much an outlier) And regardless of statistical truths, we don't know the specifics of the subject's book deal. Sara being an author who did not have as much clout before "Water for Elephants"[1], I wouldn't be shocked to learn she made more like $0.25 per book sold based on lock-in to a contract that included low royalties in exchange for ample marketing to drive book sales. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Gruen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Gruen