On Saturday night, author LL McKinney called on white authors to reveal their book advances on Twitter using the hashtag #PublishingPaidMe. Her stated goal: to reveal differences in what Black and non-Black authors get paid up front by traditional publishers. What resulted was a flood of responses from authors of all colors and backgrounds, published and unpublished, across genre, some unknown and some bestseller.
One of the more notable reveals came from novelist NK Jemisin, who received $25,000 for each book in her Hugo-award winning Broken Earth series. After an outcry (and many questions) about such a low figure, Jemisin followed up with another thread, saying, “Publishers aren’t going, ‘Mwahaha, lemme lowball this n****r!’ It’s systemic. Lots of little biases at many points forming a big racist Voltron. There’s also author preference to factor in. Personally speaking, I like royalty checks better than advance checks.”
In another surprising reveal, Jesmyn Ward tweeted that she struggled to secure a $100,000 advance for her next novel after her debut, Salvage the Bones, won the National Book Award.
And finally, Roxane Gay tweeted a list of her advances, ranging from low five figures to six figures. A white author who secured a deal partly on the basis that she had Gay’s support responded with information about her six-figure advance. She says the size of the advance was due “in no small part because Roxane has a massive platform, and makes it a point to help new writers, while she, with her massive platform and actual proven sales, got 16k.”
The advance information has been compiled in this Google spreadsheet.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
