Write For Your Lives: How Do Payments Work for Writers?

I know a lot of people who are interested in writing professionally but aren't quite there yet, so I'll do a brief spiel on how the money aspect works. There's a few different payment schemes in the writing world.

1) Exposure: Sometimes places will say that they can't pay you with money, but boy howdy, they can give you exposure. Ain't that grand? As a general rule, it's best to run screaming in the other direction from these people. I'm putting this one first because it underscores the point that you always want to get paid with actual money, even if it's not very much.

2) Flat rate and per word payment: Magazines and anthologies usually pay this way, and it's about what it sounds like. "If we accept your story, regardless of length, we'll give you $50." That's the flat rate. A per word payment means (surprise!) you're paid a certain amount based on the word count of your story. Professional rates for horror are usually considered five cents/word. For sci-fi and fantasy, the professional rate is usually considered six cents/word. Most places pay much lower rates than that.

3) Royalties: You probably understand this concept already. In your contract, it will say that X% of every sale of your book goes to you. Then, you receive a check every X months and an accounting of what sold in that period. This works great with novels and absolutely terribly with anthologies and magazines. Once royalties get split up between a bunch of authors, they disappear fast. Depending on when your book comes out, your royalties can do weird things, too. My novel Carrion Shadows came out the day before the publisher's quarterly accounting period ended, so my first check was for a grand total of $3.02. It had only been available for a few hours when the period ended.

4) Advances: This is where the big money comes from. When you hear that some celebrity signed a book deal for several wheelbarrows full of cash, that's an advance. The name comes from the fact that they're an advance on royalties. Generally, the author can't collect any royalties until the book has earned out its advance. If you receive an advance of $5,000, then you don't get any additional checks until your book surpasses the point where you would have earned $5,000 in royalties. Once you've earned $5,001 in royalties, you get a check for $1.00. A lot of books never earn out their advance, so you never see royalties on it. Generally, only large and established publishers offer advances. Smaller publishers only pay in royalties, but they might offer you a higher percentage of each sale.

There you have it. There's other, more obscure ways to make money off your writing, such as contests, but these are the options you see the most. If you read through this whole post, hopefully you found it useful.

Oh, look. It's a way to demonstrate how royalties work.