What publishing actually pays, and costs
Publishing economics are deliberately opaque. These are the numbers — advances, royalty rates, service costs — with a source and a date on every figure, and an honest “insufficient public data” where none exists.
What a book advance actually looks like
Advances are the most opaque number in publishing — most are covered by confidentiality clauses, and per-genre averages that circulate online are…
Reference table · updated 10 September 2026Standard royalty rates, and what deviation means
The royalty rates a traditional trade contract is expected to carry — by format — and, more importantly, the difference between a…
Reference table · updated 10 September 2026What publishing services cost at market
What editing, design and production actually cost when you hire professionals directly — per-word and per-project ranges, with what separates the low…
Explainer set · 20 clausesContract clauses, explained
Every clause on its own page: what it says, what's standard, what's a red flag, and what to ask for instead.