"I have no problem putting my truth down on the page, but knowing that the real people in my book weren’t going to like that truth was extremely challenging."
I'm so glad they helped her Annie. Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure what age she is, but maybe she would find a kindred spirit (or several) in my book. I owe most of my mental health strategies to horses!
Fantastic advice and I love your vision of where salaries for authors should go. What a novel idea to offer health insurance! Seriously never crossed my mind, but gosh, we spend so much of our time on this art, why not? Also, I enjoyed learning about your love of translation and Mexico - I come from a family of English-Spanish translators (that's what my parents do for work) and I was born and raised in Mexico, moving to Mexico City in a few weeks. I have a novel nagging at me that takes place here, but first, my memoir of returning to my Mexican roots :) Great to learn more about you, Courtney!
I loved this interview so much. I wrote a book in 2016 that was part memoir and my publisher required waivers from my parents, so that was fun! I love this idea of incorporating other people’s versions. Thanks for another great interview, Sari.
Illuminating as always. Was the decrease in royalties proportional to the decrease in price? Was the sale price a quarter of the original? Did they sell four times as many copies as expected? (I imagine the answer is no.)
No, the royalty rate didn't change-- publishers can discount books and e-books at their own whims but they don't change the royalty rate. So normally I get 25% of e-books at the regular price (netting me about $4 before taxes and my agent's commission) but if they drop the e-book to, say, $1.99 on sale or any other discounted price, I get 25% of 1.99 We authors just have no control over the publishers discounting our books, but we pay for those discounts, financially, if that makes sense.
Great interview! I took an online "Platform" course with Courtney and it was choc full of great advice and wisdom, as was this interview. The genre I love most is memoir and what I am working on now, so this interview was so helpful. Thank you!
Great interview! Thanks so much for including the course on the double timeline.
Writers’ royalties DO need to change. Authors are tasked with much more promotion/admin than they used to be.
I also appreciated Courtney’s distinctions between writing fiction and writing nonfiction.
I took the online master class she mentions and it was fantastic. Highly recommend!
Horses brought my daughter back from the brink.
I'm so glad they helped her Annie. Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure what age she is, but maybe she would find a kindred spirit (or several) in my book. I owe most of my mental health strategies to horses!
Fantastic advice and I love your vision of where salaries for authors should go. What a novel idea to offer health insurance! Seriously never crossed my mind, but gosh, we spend so much of our time on this art, why not? Also, I enjoyed learning about your love of translation and Mexico - I come from a family of English-Spanish translators (that's what my parents do for work) and I was born and raised in Mexico, moving to Mexico City in a few weeks. I have a novel nagging at me that takes place here, but first, my memoir of returning to my Mexican roots :) Great to learn more about you, Courtney!
Oh my gosh, Karla, that is so cool! I love CDMX so much. Best of luck with your memoir-- what an awesome journey!
Great interview. I bought the book :)
Oh, nice!
Thank you so very much, Katherine!
I loved this interview so much. I wrote a book in 2016 that was part memoir and my publisher required waivers from my parents, so that was fun! I love this idea of incorporating other people’s versions. Thanks for another great interview, Sari.
Glad you enjoyed it, Ally!
Oooh. Waivers??! If you can get through that, you have incredible books coming out of you in the future. Thanks for reading!
Illuminating as always. Was the decrease in royalties proportional to the decrease in price? Was the sale price a quarter of the original? Did they sell four times as many copies as expected? (I imagine the answer is no.)
No, the royalty rate didn't change-- publishers can discount books and e-books at their own whims but they don't change the royalty rate. So normally I get 25% of e-books at the regular price (netting me about $4 before taxes and my agent's commission) but if they drop the e-book to, say, $1.99 on sale or any other discounted price, I get 25% of 1.99 We authors just have no control over the publishers discounting our books, but we pay for those discounts, financially, if that makes sense.
Great interview! I took an online "Platform" course with Courtney and it was choc full of great advice and wisdom, as was this interview. The genre I love most is memoir and what I am working on now, so this interview was so helpful. Thank you!
Hey Courtney great interview. Except for that first question. How old are you? None of your bidness : ) btw you look thirty