Writers don't get paid as much as you'd think

This is a fascinating article written by author Lynn Viehl, whose book Twilight Fall (no, not part of the Twilight series) was a New York Times top 20 best seller.

"My advance for Twilight Fall was $50,000.00, a third of which I did not get paid until the book physically hit the shelf — this is now a common practice by publishers, to withhold a portion of the advance until date of publication. Of that $50K, my agent received $7,500.00 as her 15% (which she earns, believe me) the goverment received roughly $15,000.00, and $1594.27 went to cover my expenses (office supplies, blog giveaways, shipping, promotion, etc.) After expenses and everyone else was paid, I netted about $26K of my $50K advance for this book, which is believe it or not very good — most authors are lucky if they can make 10% profit on any book. This should also shut up everyone who says all bestselling authors make millions — most of us don’t."

Buy lots of books, and don't feel guilty about buying expensive books - the authors work hard for the money!