How much to authors make per book?

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Anny_Middon

I occasionally buy books at Dollar Tree (“Everything’s a Dollar!”)*. Every time I do, I wonder what the author gets – is it 10-15% of the dollar I paid, or of the list price? I can’t imagine it’s the latter, or money would be lost on every book sold.

I think (correct me if I’m wrong, those of you with knowledge of the book biz) that by the time a book winds up at the Dollar Tree, the publisher has given up on it, and the author isn’t getting any money from the sale of that particular copy (beyond the advance they got when they first sold the book to the publisher). The best-case scenario for them is that you like the book so much, you go on to buy more of the author’s books at non-Dollar Tree prices.

What I wonder about is e-books (and, I guess, electronically distributed audiobooks): sometimes Kindle editions of books will temporarily go on sale for way below their regular price. If I buy an e-book when it’s marked down to $1.99, is the author getting the same amount as if I had bought it for the regular price? (Of course, I might have bought it only because it was marked down to $1.99.)

[Darren_Garrison]

@Anny_Middon

I occasionally buy books at Dollar Tree (“Everything’s a Dollar!”)*. Every time I do, I wonder what the author gets – is it 10-15% of the dollar I paid, or of the list price? I can’t imagine it’s the latter, or money would be lost on every book sold.

I assume that the writer was paid when an original store bought the books from the publisher, then couldn’t sell them and sold them at a loss per copy to Dollar Tree (but not necessarily a net loss for the whole stock they originally bought, or course) and the author doesn’t get a penny.

[Colibri]

@Anny_Middon

I occasionally buy books at Dollar Tree (“Everything’s a Dollar!”)*. Every time I do, I wonder what the author gets – is it 10-15% of the dollar I paid, or of the list price? I can’t imagine it’s the latter, or money would be lost on every book sold.

• The selection is extremely limited, but the price is certainly right. I’ll buy a book I’m only mildly interested in, since if I don’t like I just donate it and I’m out only a buck. I gave a few boxes of books to a local chapter of the American Association Of University Women, who fund scholarships with the proceeds of their used book sales. I mentioned to the woman who took my books about my habit of buying at the Dollar Tree, and she started to laugh. My Dollar Tree books are almost entirely hardcover, and the AAUW charges $2 per hardcover book.

Those will be remaindered books, ones the publisher is getting rid of at a loss. While royalties are usually paid on the official list price, remaindered books will be different. From here:

Speaking of the contract, it usually requires the publisher to offer the author the chance to buy their own book at the remainder price before selling it off to a remainder company. Also, it probably stipulates that you don’t get royalties on copies of your book sold for below manufacturing cost, so you’re not making any money on remainders. (But it’s a loss for your publisher too, so you’re sharing the pain.)

In my case, my contract specifies that I still get 5% on copies that are not sold “according to the normal discount schedule,” which I believe would cover remaindered books, but at the remaindered rather than at the list price. In the event, the Panama edition wasn’t selling very well locally because the publishers couldn’t find a good distributor. They offered the remaining copies to me for slightly below cost. Now I distribute them in Panama and make 10-15 times a copy compared to what I was getting in royalties. On the other hand, the US edition is selling well and is on its second printing.