prog | (no subject)

Seen in Gene Weingarten's chat log from yesterday

The average "advance" for a book by an author who is not a household name is probably about $100,000.

Wh-- what?!

OK... he's talking about a different book market here (he writes political satire books) but seriously, I had no idea what other segments of the overall market paid. Holy... ugh. All the advances I got from both of the computer books I worked on didn't add up to a tenth of this. Hell, I'm not entirely certain that advances plus royalties add up to $10K. And "not a household name!"

Seriously... this is news to me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I remember reading an interesting counterexample about a guy who seemed like he should have been a successful writer but wasn't. Maybe times have changed since the original piece was written.

There's also another article specifically about tech writing that seems like it's in line with your experience.