[JHerzog01]

A while back someone posted a message that had a link written by an author (I dont remember who) who had just become a New York times bestseller and it detailed the amount of money that she made from it. I've searched and searched and just cannot seem to find it. Does anyone remember this? It was a really good article and I would love to have it.

[kater]

I think the one you were referring to was in the Industry thread and also in this one here: http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22390&highlight=Bestseller

[expatrie]

Not sure how to pull this off, I guess a thread resurrection to the original thread isn't always welcomed.

Anyway. I linked to the original thread on my blog and added some information. Please, don't go thinking I'm some kind of industry insider or genius know-it-all. Most of that is what I've read in writing books scattered around, but I do have a friend or two who've seen fiction contracts.

Most contracts (or at least some) include a confidentiality clause on the terms.

That's why data on first-novel advances is hard to come by. If you disclose terms you're (a) risking blowing the deal and (b) if the numbers are small, it can be embarrassing, perhaps. And then there are royalty only contracts without an advance. And all the genres have different norms (contract / category romance being a good example of an outlier). Literary operates on a different order of magnitude in sales and such, so it's another atypical.

An agent could/damn well should help you decide if the advance is fair. They have other clients to gauge against, even if they don't blab about that to all their other agent friends, so their data set is at least ten times the size of yours. And having one data point is no way to base a decision off of. That's the dart board approach.

--Brian