Editing Author (section)

== Compensation ==
Authors rely on advance fees, royalty payments, adaptation of work to a screenplay, and fees collected from giving speeches.<ref name="byliner">{{cite web |last1=Dezman |first1=Chux |title=How Much Money Do Authors Make? |url=https://byliner.com/how-much-money-do-authors-make/ |website=Byliner |date=28 February 2021 |access-date=3 November 2021}}</ref>

A standard contract for an author will usually include provision for payment in the form of an advance and royalties.

* Advance: a lump sum paid before publication. An advance must be earned out before royalties are payable. It may be paid in two lump sums: the first payment on contract signing, and the second on delivery of the completed manuscript or on publication.
* Royalty payment: the sum paid to authors for each copy of a book sold and is traditionally around 10–12%, but self-published authors can earn about 40% – 60% royalties per each book sale.<ref name="byliner" /> An author's contract may specify, for example, that they will earn 10% of the retail price of each book sold. Some contracts specify a scale of royalties payable (for example, where royalties start at 10% for the first 10,000 sales, but then increase to a higher percentage rate at higher sale thresholds).

Usually, an author's book must earn the advance before any further royalties are paid. For example, if an author is paid a modest advance of $2000, and their royalty rate is 10% of a book priced at $20 – that is, $2 per book – the book will need to sell 1000 copies before any further payment will be made. Publishers typically withhold payment of a percentage of royalties earned against returns.

In some countries, authors also earn income from a government scheme such as the ELR (educational lending right) and PLR (public lending right) schemes in Australia. Under these schemes, authors are paid a fee for the number of copies of their books in educational and/or public libraries.

These days, many authors supplement their income from book sales with public speaking engagements, school visits, residencies, grants, and teaching positions.

[[Ghostwriter]]s, technical writers, and textbooks writers are typically paid in a different way: usually a set fee or a per word rate rather than on a percentage of sales.

In the year 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 130,000 people worked in the country as authors, making an average of $61,240 per year.<ref name="byliner" />