For Love or Money?
I'm often asked whether being an educational author is a good way to earn money. It's certainly great in one sense: I love the chance to communicate my ideas by writing books about them. And there's obviously something extremely special and exciting about seeing your own book, with your own name on it, on the bookshelf in a bookshop. But a good way to make money? Well, don't be fooled by those Harry Potter style figures about the advances that fiction authors receive. If you calculated the hourly rate that most non fiction authors achieve, you'd be pretty shocked. When I first started writing teaching books, it was definitely for love and love alone. I had just left my first school, and I was burning with the desire to write a book for other new teachers, about how to survive that difficult first year. Luckily for me I had a bit of spare time between teaching posts, and I put that time to good use.
The money any author earns at first is, to be frank, fairly pitiful. Clearly with over 25 books in print, I earn a fair bit more now than I did in the early years. But still, like most other non fiction authors, I have to do a variety of other jobs to pay the bills. Luckily for me, I love these other jobs too - delivering INSET, working as a presenter, writing articles for magazines, spending time in the classroom. All these come out of the 'name' I have created for myself by being a published author, so it certainly has a benefit in that sense. As a basic rule of thumb, most non fiction writers don’t make enough from their books to earn a living (most will do other jobs such as training and journalism, etc. as well). For your first book, you would probably expect a royalty of about 10-12% of the publishers’ net receipts. This is not 10% of the price of the book, but of what the publishers get for selling it. Most publishers will sell their titles at roughly 30-40% off the list price to book shops. So, a book of 200 pages might sell for say £15.99, but would only earn the publishers about £10, and consequently the author about £1. The average first year's sales for a teaching book would probably be about 1,000 copies or less. So there you have it – if your book sells well, you may earn about £1,000 before tax. Not quite in the J.K. Rowling league, is it?
Obviously the book you write may sell very well, and get re-printed quickly, but with teaching books this is not hugely likely. You do however continue to earn royalties while the book remains in print, which could be many years (but be aware that sales tend to tail off after an initial burst of interest). Royalties are usually paid every six months, but because of the way publishers' accounting systems work you end up getting them 3 months after the time at which they were earned. If you are still keen to write a non fiction book, despite everything you've read so far, put out some feelers first. Write a sample contents list, an outline proposal and the first 3 chapters, and then send this out to suitable publishers. You may get a contract at this stage, but make sure that you can complete the book within a set time frame (usually about 9 months from signature of contract).
What happens next? When do I see some £££??? Well, from submitting a final manuscript, to seeing your book on the shelves, is usually about 7 months. You should then add another 9 months to this before you’d expect to see any money (6 months royalties paid 3 months in arrears). So, if you finished and submitted a book in the summer of one year, you could expect to get some money from it towards the end of the following year.
And finally, what happened to that first teaching book? Did it ever earn me more than the pittance that I've complained about in this article? Well luckily for me it is still in print, and still selling well. And over the years that book has more than repaid the six months of time I could have spent on the beach. My best advice is to write because you want to communicate something new to teachers, rather than for the financial return. The money may come in time, but in the meantime bear in mind something that Robert Graves once said: "There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money either."
The money any author earns at first is, to be frank, fairly pitiful. Clearly with over 25 books in print, I earn a fair bit more now than I did in the early years. But still, like most other non fiction authors, I have to do a variety of other jobs to pay the bills. Luckily for me, I love these other jobs too - delivering INSET, working as a presenter, writing articles for magazines, spending time in the classroom. All these come out of the 'name' I have created for myself by being a published author, so it certainly has a benefit in that sense. As a basic rule of thumb, most non fiction writers don’t make enough from their books to earn a living (most will do other jobs such as training and journalism, etc. as well). For your first book, you would probably expect a royalty of about 10-12% of the publishers’ net receipts. This is not 10% of the price of the book, but of what the publishers get for selling it. Most publishers will sell their titles at roughly 30-40% off the list price to book shops. So, a book of 200 pages might sell for say £15.99, but would only earn the publishers about £10, and consequently the author about £1. The average first year's sales for a teaching book would probably be about 1,000 copies or less. So there you have it – if your book sells well, you may earn about £1,000 before tax. Not quite in the J.K. Rowling league, is it?
Obviously the book you write may sell very well, and get re-printed quickly, but with teaching books this is not hugely likely. You do however continue to earn royalties while the book remains in print, which could be many years (but be aware that sales tend to tail off after an initial burst of interest). Royalties are usually paid every six months, but because of the way publishers' accounting systems work you end up getting them 3 months after the time at which they were earned. If you are still keen to write a non fiction book, despite everything you've read so far, put out some feelers first. Write a sample contents list, an outline proposal and the first 3 chapters, and then send this out to suitable publishers. You may get a contract at this stage, but make sure that you can complete the book within a set time frame (usually about 9 months from signature of contract).
What happens next? When do I see some £££??? Well, from submitting a final manuscript, to seeing your book on the shelves, is usually about 7 months. You should then add another 9 months to this before you’d expect to see any money (6 months royalties paid 3 months in arrears). So, if you finished and submitted a book in the summer of one year, you could expect to get some money from it towards the end of the following year.
And finally, what happened to that first teaching book? Did it ever earn me more than the pittance that I've complained about in this article? Well luckily for me it is still in print, and still selling well. And over the years that book has more than repaid the six months of time I could have spent on the beach. My best advice is to write because you want to communicate something new to teachers, rather than for the financial return. The money may come in time, but in the meantime bear in mind something that Robert Graves once said: "There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money either."
