First up, take look at THIS:

Step up and take a bow Matthew of Runcorn, Cheshire (UK), for this fantastic pic of one of the Chinj from Black Tat. You can bet it’ll be up on the Black Tat site’s Reader Art Page for posterity to savour just as soon as THE WEBSPHINX gets back from maternity leave. -I mean, isn’t it terrific? 🙂 🙂

Now: Q&A time again – and given the current international financial shenanigans it’s a fairly topical one, being as it is about money. Gemma, from Osbourne, one of the schools I visited on my Isle of Wight Tour, asks:

When someone buys one of your books, does all the money go to you?

The answer, unfortunately for me I guess(!) is No. I get a percentage, sure, but it’s not massive – it varies, but a guideline figure would be around ten percent of cover price. That means that for each copy of the UK paperback of Black Tat, for example – current cover price five pounds ninety-nine – I theoretically get something like sixty pence. Factor in stuff like paying my agents, my taxes and other costs, and it’s less – maybe 40p a copy.

Seems unfair? Actually it’s nothing like as bad as it sounds. Don’t forget, books cost money to make, as well as write. From the proceeds of each copy sold the publishers also have to pay – to name just a few – editors, proofreaders, designers, artists, printers, the marketing team, the sales force, booksellers (in the form of discounts) and many more other costs besides. A huge amount of work and commitment and effort goes into every single book, from lots of people besides the writer.

But, yeah. If you’re thinking that you would have to sell a lot of books to get really stinking rich at this “author” caper, you’d be absolutely right. So: I would never recommend writing as a sensible career choice for anyone. On the contrary, as a kindly author once told me when I was starting out, Don’t do it unless you can possibly avoid it! Big names like Rowling, Patterson, Meyer or Paolini might make headlines for their fortunes, but they are exceptional. If you want to make money there are much easier ways to do it than writing books.

For myself, money is, naturally, great when it comes. But the only way I can sanely proceed with my own sinister masterplan to conquer the universe is with insane ambition (of course!) but without any actual expectations other than the continuing chase after my own passion for, and belief in, what I’m doing.

Anything else – including awesome Reader Art (thanks, Matthew!) and excellent questions like this (thanks, Gemma!) – I tend to see as a bonus. YAY! 🙂

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Comments? Suggestions? Questions? Me and THE WEBSPHINX would love to hear from you! Drop us a line at the Tim, Defender of the Earth Guestbook for current or Tim stuff, or The Black Tattoo Guestbook for Black Tat stuff. First (or demon-!) names only, please. 😉