

Ask HN: How much do professors make on books they author? - pskittle

Hey Folks,
Does anyone know how much money does a professor&#x2F;researcher&#x2F;scientist&#x2F;techie make on a book he&#x2F;she authors. Do publishers get most of the dough?
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benbreen
In my humanities field (history) I've heard that hardcover books from
university presses yield virtually nothing in royalties (on the order of a
couple hundred dollars) but that if a book is reprinted as a paperback aimed
at undergraduate courses, it can be an order of magnitude more. I've also
heard that textbooks are the only scholarly publishing outlet that actually
makes healthy royalties - i.e. letting you pay a down payment on a house as
opposed to paying for a couple nice dinners out. In terms of hours spent (in
the thousands) to money earned (in the hundreds of dollars), writing a typical
university press hardcover has got to be one of the lowest-paying professional
activities in existence.

As for non-fiction popular press books, I've been told that a typical advance
can range from less than 10k to around 50k-60k - the idea being that this
money will sustain the author for the 6 months to a year or so it takes to
finish the manuscript. (Would that this were feasible for academic books!)

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jmenn
In my field (English / English Lit) one of the motivations for the monograph
is tenure. That's likely worth more than any royalties off the actual book
sales.

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Someone1234
It varies wildly. Some professors such as those from top tier universities are
basically best selling authors in their own right so therefore they make a
ton. Then you have other staff who are a huge risk by the publisher and they
barely make anything.

The real reason college textbooks are out of control has nothing to do with
professors getting rich, they aren't. They're out of control because
publishers are doing professor's grading in exchange for the professor just
assigning the book.

Instead of a publisher selling a book for e.g. $70, they sell it for $100 and
bundle with it a "one time use code." This code allows students to log into a
publisher run website and turn in assignments, complete problems, and so on.

So effectively the professor has outsourced a large chunk of grading to a
third party and better still (for them) it is "free." And all they have to do
is assign the $100 book instead of the $70 one, then just log into a free
portal and collect all of the grades for the semester.

Publishers naturally get very rich off of this. They only have to set up a
web-site once and then they can resell it to dozens of different schools,
hundreds of classes. Plus they really cut corners with the grading and
questions too (often out-sourcing those to the original authors of the book as
part of the contract to update the book annually).

The only way to solve this is to put pressure on colleges, departments, and
professors. Publishers are doing what they're meant to: trying to make every
cent they can. It is professors and colleges which are failing in their duty
and effectively outsourcing part of student's education to a third party for a
fee (which the student pays).

The only other thing I can see resolving it is states stepping in and
essentially making rules which say that the tuition fees must be all inclusive
(e.g. you must get given the textbooks on the first day of class, but the cost
of those is included into the main fee so there is nothing hidden).

So even if this scheme continued it would all be out in the open, and students
could accurately compare the fee structure between two schools, one that is
taking part, and one which is not...

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techdog
Unless you're a rock star (figuratively speaking of course) the publisher
keeps the lion's share.

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afarrell
How much do publishers pay folks who are writing books?

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asb
~10% net receipts is fairly standard I believe.

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johntaek
An extreme outlier, but feed into Google "The house that math built". Very
interesting story.

