When Brilliant Minds was published in late 2022, I like to think I had a fairly realistic understanding of how it would change my life—that is to say, it wouldn’t.
I knew enough authors to know that having a book published would be exciting, but it wasn’t going to open the door to a new world of money and fame.
There are plenty of authors out there doing phenomenally well, and their success is inspiring. But I belong to a much larger camp of authors, whose financial rewards for writing are a mere blip compared to our ‘day jobs.’
Since I’m always grateful to authors who pull back the curtain and show us what it’s really like, I thought I would contribute to the conversation by sharing my royalty statements.
Brilliant Minds: 30 Dyslexic Heroes Who Changed Our World is a children’s non-fiction book, published in Australia in late 2022. It’s important to keep in mind that it’s considered an illustrated book, so I share my royalties with my illustrator—each receiving 5% compared to the more standard 10% that a novelist might receive.
The RRP is $35 and I received a $5,000 advance, half of which was paid when I signed the contract in 2021 and half when the book was released in 2022.
Royalty periods
I have received six royalty statements since the book was published:
Period 1: October 2022 to March 2023 Period 2: April 2023 to September 2023
Period 3: October 2023 to March 2024 Period 4: April 2024 to September 2024
Period 5: October 2024 to March 2025 Period 6: April 2025 to September 2025
Book sales per period
Period 1: 2,710 books sold
Consisting of 1,749 full-priced books and 961 high-discount books.
Period 2: -24 books sold (yes, that’s a minus)
Consisting of 222 full-priced books and the return of 246 high-discount books.
Period 3: 39 books sold
Consisting of 36 full-priced books and 3 high-discount books.
Period 4: 60 books sold
Consisting of 50 full-priced books and 10 high-discount books.
Period 5: 134 books sold
Consisting of 133 full-priced books and 1 high-discount book.
Period 6: 119 books sold
Consisting of 114 full-priced books and 5 high-discount books.
Total book sales = 3,038 (up to September 2025)
High discount books
High discount books are those sold by the publisher to (typically) the big brand department stores – Big W, Kmart etc – or the online stores where you get heavily discounted books. You know the ones, I don’t need to name them.
People often come into the bookshop where I work and ask if we ‘price-match’ and complain that they can get books ‘much cheaper’ online or at Big W. That’s true. You CAN get books much cheaper online or at the department stores (here is a blog I wrote that explains this in more detail: https://shannonmeyerkort.com/2023/10/05/secret-life-of-an-author-bookseller-why-bookshops-are-more-expensive/)
But this is how the decision to buy a heavily discounted book can affect the author…
When a bookshop sells a copy of Brilliant Minds at the RRP of $35, I get 5% of the sale (minus GST), which works out to be (on average) $1.59 per book.
When a high-discount retailer sells a copy of Brilliant Minds at $24 (or less) my royalty drops to around $0.62 – $0.71 per book.
Sidenote: In Period 4, 10 copies of my book were sold at ultra-high discount, and my royalty statement shows I earned 45c for those ten books (4 ½ cents per book).
Earnings over time
Book sales are one thing, but how does this translate into bags of cold, hard cash?
Well, it probably doesn’t, and not only because I have not yet earned out my $5,000 advance.
I have also added my earnings from Public Lending Rights (PLR) and Educational Lending Rights (ELR). This is the money authors are allocated for copies of their books located in public and school libraries across the country, based on the idea that we miss out on book sales since people can borrow our books for free.
As you can see, after the first six-month period after Brilliant Minds was released, I have been earning more from lending rights than book sales (and I am eternally grateful to the Australian Society of Authors for fighting for these lending rights).
I will save you the trouble of trying to estimate my book earnings over the past three years.
It’s $6,586.
I’m proud of that. I’m proud to have a book published at all. Proud to have nurtured something from an idea into a physical object that people can hold, read and (hopefully) be inspired by.
I hope to have more books published in the future, but I’m not expecting it to change my life in any significant way. The real reward isn’t in the money, it’s in the creation.
I don’t know a single writer who writes for the money. I don’t know many who write for fame either, because that’s a rare gift. Most of the writers I know write because they can’t not write. It’s a compulsion, and rarely an easy one.
So if you’re thinking of becoming a writer, or know someone who is, it’s important to remember that the magic isn’t in the money, it’s in the words, the act itself.
And for those of us who can’t stop ourselves—it’s everything. So let’s keep sharing and keeping it real.
shannonmeyerkort.com 