> books not recouping their advances This is in fact a feature, not a bug. Traditional publishers consider a book to be a "success" when it has recouped about

> books not recouping their advances This is in fact a feature, not a bug. Traditional publishers consider a book to be a "success" when it has recouped about 70% of its advance. Publishers prefer this situation because advances are a fixed cost and by holding down royalties (which they essentially refuse to negotiate on except with the most successful authors), they earn big money on the few books with low advances that do really, really well. This means that authors have an incentive to negotiate as large an advance as possible; so from an author's perspective, if you have earned out your advance, it means you have failed to capture as much value from your book as you could have (and/or, you are a runaway best-seller, so you will presumably negotiate better the next time). Source: CEO testimony from the trial transcripts in the antitrust case against the merger of Peguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. Available here if you're interested (disclosure: I have no interest in Publisher's Lunch, and the transcripts may also be available publically): https://shop.publishersmarketplace.com/ https://shop.publishersmarketplace.com/ Edit: it is funny to see in the trial that some authors and agents clearly do not understand this, even with having it being explained by the CEOs of publishing companies earlier in the very same trial.