Lars Eighner's Homepage Writers' Workshop FAQ: Q. Is it better to only take royalties, or to take an advance?

Q. Is it better to only take royalties, or to take an advance?

A. I hope this is a hypothetical question, because if you are really being presented with these alternatives, you are dealing with a very unscrupulous publisher.

As a workman might ask for an advance on his wages, the word "advance" in publishing means a payment against royalties. No one should be offering you an advance in lieu of royalties.

Naturally you should try to get as much in advance as possible, and perhaps seek professional help if you don't see the logic of this.

For any deal a beginner is going to get, the advance is his to keep even if royalties never amount to as much. In a contract for a book which is to be delivered to the publisher in the future, "advance" is used in a slightly different sense, and if the writer cannot deliver the MS, this sort of advance must be returned.

In either case, when the publisher has the MS in hand and finds it acceptable for publication the advance is the author's to keep. If royalties exceed the advance, the author gets the excess.

The size of the advance ought not to affect the royalty negotiation. By the time the author's royalties exceed the advance, the publisher will be making money on the book and can afford to give the author a few more points. Many royalty deals have escalator clauses, so the royalty goes up after a certain number of copies are sold.

A few of sleaziest romances and pornography books are sold on an outright-purchase or work-for-hire basis. The writer's payment in this case is not an advance, because what he gets is every penny he will ever make from the book--it is not in "advance" of anything. This is a very dubious practice, and I am not even sure that it is legal in the EC.

A book published in the conventional way should always entail an advance for the author. A publisher who cannot put up a reasonable advance lacks the commitment, the confidence, or the ability to promote the book properly.