Author Income Streams, 1 of 15: Royalties

So royal, so vaulted, and just the beginning of book money

Ooh, peanuts. Photo by Vladislav Nikonov on Unsplash.

Welcome to the first of fifteen different types of income I’ve identified that authors can mix and match to create sustainable, holistic, income-generating author lives and author businesses that work for them.

We’re going to start where many start and stop their thinking about author income: royalties.

Royalties

So royal and vaulted, most consider royalties the end all, be all, only form of author income. For many traditionally published authors, monthly, quarterly, biannual, or annual royalty payments represent an author’s share, per the contract, of print books, ebooks, audiobooks, and any other formats under contract sold in the latest accounting period.

Royalties is also the word used by Amazon, hybrid publishers, and businesses that help authors self-publish for similar payments from their different business models that give authors the sense that they are making real author money.

Royalties can also come for all authors from any residual payments connected with rights sales, webinars, and arrangements with other entities for content products.