[phone[phone]]

The vast, VAST majority of money that an author makes is from their advance. It is exceedingly rare for a book to sell even enough to cover that advance, and even rarer for it to have sales strong enough that the author sees meaningful, life changing residuals.

[tivert]

>> I don't want to live in a society where authors don't get paid, so the laws are just fine.

> The vast, VAST majority of money that an author makes is from their advance. It is exceedingly rare for a book to sell even enough to cover that advance, and even rarer for it to have sales strong enough that the author sees meaningful, life changing residuals.

This is how author advances would work in a world without copyright: authors would self-publish their books, and there would be no advances. If the book proved to be popular and successful, all the major distribution platforms would "pirate" it and pay them nothing. No conceivable DRM would save the author's income, because the platforms can afford to pay people to manually key in the work.

[ghaff]

And why should I even offer you an advance if I’m not going to make any money off your book. Heck, why should I invest any money in editing your book for that matter.

I’m not sure it’s exceedingly rare for an author to not make some beer money on top of single dollar advances but it’s not a full-time job for many authors. It mostly works to support the day job or as a hobby.

But many authors might as well self-publish today. I mostly have.

[robertlagrant]

> The vast, VAST majority of money that an author makes is from their advance

Think about it. If there is no copyright, why would anyone pay an advance?