Think of their systems as being like the worse cable billing system in the world, except in reverse. Meanwhile, wolves are drinking tea in the living room and making crude remarks about the wallpaper.

Do a Google search for “late royalties” and you will find some nice horror stories (such as: numbers didn’t add up, AND the royalties were later than they usually are by three months).

I have no idea if it’s malevolence (keep writers underpaid so the publishing company survives) or incompetence, but it definitely exists.

This is a general rule, called the “time value of money” rule. But it’s especially true in publishing, where royalty checks are notoriously slow in coming, or even uncertain. (Not as bad as in the recording industry, where if your album doesn’t sell well enough you can actually get a BILL from the godsdamned giant ripoff organization recording company!)

“shouldn’t it be assumed that all new writers have jobs that have supported them for the intervening decade?”

No. Lots of new writers quit their jobs to write full time, or go part time to have more time to write, lowering their income/benefits level substantially.

It’s also to the point that many writers who do have full-time jobs don’t have full-time jobs that pay well enough for them to comfortably put off a sure amount of income now for a larger slice of a potential pie a year or more down the road (which is when royalty income would start coming in).

Finally, there is this recession thing going on. Lots of writers might have had jobs before and don’t have them now.

“If you sell a few books and they sell, that will get you to the point of living off your books faster than if you get advances.”

No, you don’t. If you sell a few books and you sell, your advances should commensurately go up, and advances, almost by the very definition of the world, get to author quicker.

Note that advances are not generally offered by plucking a random number out of the air; they’re calculated by the publisher considering how many of your books they’re likely to sell over the life of the book, applied to the royalty rate. Basically you get paid in an advance what your publisher thinks you’d make anyway, stretched out over years. In which case, better to have the money up front in most cases.

And it’s rarely the first book that allows someone to quit their job. Isn’t it usually a few books later?

So, why not want a bigger chunk of the change? If you sell a few books and they sell, that will get you to the point of living off your books faster than if you get advances.

And speaking of which, wasn’t that sort of what you did?

All too often I receive a “Oh we can’t pay you, there’s no budget for that. But this is a great opportunity, you will get lots of experience”. Yeah, thanks. Then it’s ok with you that I give priority to all my paying clients and get your work done by, say, never? Is never good for you? Good.

I’m suddenly reminded of Poetry.com “contests” where your reward is you get to buy your own prize! :D yay!

(steeples fingers, Monty Burns style)

(And actually, I do like your writing. Have Imago Sequence on the shelf here)