Royalties can be an author’s lifeblood. For the self-published author, it can become a major source of income. You didn’t spend all that hard effort writing your book for it to sit on a shelf looking pretty. You want people to read your work and, more importantly, you want people to pay you for the privilege of reading your work! In addition to royalties, you can also earn income through your own self-marketing efforts such as selling books on your own website or at public speaking venues. All book-publishing royalties are paid by the publisher who determines your royalty rate. In this case, that would be us, A FontLife Publication, LLC.

Since our focus is to help the self-published author achieve success, it’s important for you to understand as much as you can about royalties. We want you to be a success, because as you achieve success, we both make money. It can be expensive to publish a book. We want to start making money with your book as soon as possible after it’s published.

As a new author, the bulk of your income flows from the “running royalty” stream. The running royalty stream is the money we earn from sales after the book is published and for as long as the book continues to sell and remains in print. Depending on the source of our sales, whether through A FontLife Publication, LLC’s website or through our distribution channel with partners like Amazon.com, the royalty stream may start flowing in as little as one month to as long as three months after the book is published. We generally receive the income from our distribution partners three months after a sale. We pay you your royalties as we receive the income.

Print on Demand Royalties

Industry-wide, hardcover royalties on the published price of trade books usually range from 10% to 12.5%, with 15% going to more important authors. On paperbacks, it is usually 7.5% to 10%, going up to 12.5% only in exceptional cases. Paying 15% to the author can mean that the other 85% of the cost pays for editing and proof-reading, printing and binding, overhead, and the profits (if any) to the publisher. Typically, the publishing company pays no royalty on bulk purchases of books since the buying price may be a third of the cover price sold on a singles basis.

As a self-published author, you help pay for the initial publishing costs. As a result, A FontLife Publication, LLC pays you a 70% royalty on the net amount of your book sales…all book sales…even on bulk purchases! This is unheard of in the industry. Why do we do this? Because we believe that you, the author, deserve the lion’s share of the profits. And it’s also because we don’t run the risk of carrying inventory. Out books are all print on demand. Print on demand (POD) is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book (or other document) are not printed until an order has been received, which means books can be printed one at a time. The following table illustrates the income to an author on the basis chosen for royalty:

Click here to see the list of our global Print Book Distribution Partners through whom your book may be sold.

eBook Royalties

eBook royalties are paid the same way as print book royalties. To maximize your income, we pay you 70% of the net amount received from our distribution channel partners. The amounts we have to pay our distribution partners are dictated to us. Everyone pays the same. In addition to the standard 52.5% discount we have to offer Amazon.com, they also charge a 4% coop advertising fee.

Click here to see the list of our global eBook Distribution Partners through whom your eBook may be sold.

Royalty Calculators

While you’re dreaming about how much money you can potentially earn selling your books, why not play around with our royalty calculators?

Apple eBook Royalty Calculator
eBook Royalty Calculator
Print Book Royalty Calculator