How Much Do Traditional Publishers Pay in Advance? - podcast

Publishing a book has many different motivators. You may be driven to publish in order to help others with your message, share your story, or support your business. But even when writing is your passion, you still need to pay the bills. So, how much do book publishers pay in advance? Literary agent B.J. Robbins discusses the state of advances in today’s publishing market. She says that advances from traditional publishers can range from incredibly low to astonishingly high. It depends on how enthusiastic the publisher is about the book, how it’s been pitched to them, and what the author is bringing to the table. In fact, there’s so much variation that it’s almost meaningless to speak of an average range. It could be as low as five thousand dollars or even lower. It could be as high as seven figures—although that’s very rare. Most advances are less than a hundred thousand dollars. The likely size of an advance for a particular book is something that’s almost impossible to predict.