The Secret to Earning Royalties

This one simple trick

Hi friends,

March and September are my favorite months because that’s when the majority of my royalty-earning clients get royalty checks. Royalties are sent twice a year, a few months after the close of the royalty period. In September, we get the royalties from book sales made in January-June. In March, we get royalties from book sales made in July-December. Approximately. Publishers are not on the same schedule, even among different imprints to imprints.

If you don’t remember, this is how books earn royalties. But, the unfortunate reality of publishing is that most books do not “earn out,” or sell enough books to pay back their advance and thus get paid royalties. The overwhelming majority of authors get their advance money and that’s it. This is true for my clients as well. The majority of them do not get royalties. But there’s a handful of them who get checks twice a year—sometimes $10, sometimes $1000—and I have a theory as to why that’s happening.

It’s not just they sold a ton of books.