Lawrence LaRose neatly ducked a question thrown at him today while he gave a talk about his 2004 book Gutted—Down to the Studs in My House, My Marriage, My Entire Life at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton, New York.

He was asked how well the book was doing. Amazingly he didn’t blink. He didn’t get dodgy-eyed.

Gutted is selling as a used book on Amazon for $1.23.

LaRose’s 1996 book, The Code: Time-Tested Secrets for Getting What You Want from Women–Without Marrying Them, is selling on Amazon for $.30.

He wanted $20 for the hardcover version of Gutted, a few copies of which were available on a table nearby. I offered him $10. He said: ”But you’re an author, too.” (Like I’m supposed to show some sympathy.) I pointed out to him that I could buy the book for $1.23 online! Sold: $10.00!

Cruel and heartless though I may be toward a fellow author, I know he is just learning a lesson that I learned a long time ago—and moved over into the business side of publishing. The retail price of a book is meaningless. There is no money in publishing for the vast majority of authors. Having a book sell more than 100,000 copies is as “difficult as making an NBA team” I read somewhere, and I believe it. My titles sold very well – over 600,000 copies. Maybe his first book did, too, since he smartly spoofed and rode the coattails of The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right on the publicity circuit and onto a sofa beside Oprah. But just because you sell tens of thousands of copies or even hundreds of thousands of copies, doesn’t mean the big checks will roll in for the author. Not like they do for the publishing house. Read the contract.

What’s an advance against royalties, really? It’s a loan. Something you have to “pay back” calculated on your paltry royalties before you see a dime more. Yes, there is the possibility that enough copies will be sold at high enough prices and you’ll receive the maximum royalty, and you may actually manage to “pay back” that loan, but the likelihood is slim, slim, slim. And that’s the way publishers like it. The contract is designed to fill the coffers of the publishing house, not the polka-dotted, porcelain piggy bank of the author.

Here’s what I recommend for authors today. Don’t accept an advance against royalties. (Yippee! A $100,000 advance against royalties! OK, make it $10,000.) Surprise! It’s doled out upon signing the contract, turning in an “approved” manuscript, being published, and (horrors!) reaching the six-month mark after the pub date if the publishing house can get away with it. Get a check upfront as payment in full, and get as much as you can. Say the magic words “work for hire.” Then make them pay more than the advance they intended to pay because a work-for-hire contract relieves them of that much-hated task of figuring out how much (actually, how little) they can owe you.  

Determining royalties is a matter of interpreting the contract – which is done in favor of the publishing house, naturally. Money you have in your hand today is worth much more than money tomorrow. By the way, the size of the check you are offered will indicate the kind of support your book will get.

Let the publishers do what they want with the book. Give it away, make it a loss leader for another book, sell ads in it, slash the price, ignore it, remainder it. Once you’ve got your money, you can spend it, save it, invest it and get on with your next book. You won’t have to worry about losing your book’s champion when the editor changes publishing houses, you won’t have to sweat the contract clauses that take that dollar you would have earned for each book sold and reduce it to $.15, you won’t have to worry about your “intellectual property rights.” You’ll know what you have. Period. You’ll no longer be a pathetic figure waiting at the end of the driveway in a blizzard, hopping up and down in the cold, waiting for the postman to drive up and hand you that slim white envelope from your publishing company. You’ll be out of the publishing crapshoot.  

Posted by: Lynne Scanlon