author advances

(Newser) - In a bid to boost its ebook business, Amazon is now offering authors and publishers 70% of every sale of a title for the Kindle. The move more than quadruples the standard royalty of 15% or less, to put more in writers' pockets even as the price of their books...

(Newser) - Defying reports that publishers are in the poorhouse, Audrey Niffenegger, author of the huge bestseller, The Time Traveler’s Wife, has received a nearly $5 million advance for a new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, the New York Times reports. Her agent said the whopping payout from Scribner, a unit of...

(Newser) - HarperCollins has decided to rock the book-publishing boat, the Wall Street Journal reports. It’s launching a new imprint that won’t allow retailers to return unsold books—a potentially risky departure from tradition—and will offer little or no advance payments to authors. The imprint will focus on online...