When do I earn out?

A simple tool designed to calculate how many copies you must sell to earn out your advance.

"Earning out" means that the amount you've "earned" in royalties from copies sold (across all formats) equals or exceeds your advance payment.

All values shown are approximate. Only your royalty statement knows the truth!

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Your royalties are:

You will have to sell 10,718 hardcover copies to earn out your advance. The publisher will earn $120,000.00 in gross revenue .

You will have to sell 23,543 paperback copies to earn out your advance. The publisher will earn $200,000.00 in gross revenue .

You will have to sell 14,298 ebook copies to earn out your advance. The publisher will earn $120,000.00 in gross revenue .

You will have to sell 16,011 audiobook copies to earn out your advance. The publisher will earn $120,000.00 in gross revenue .

Want to break it down further?

If you sell...

3000
hardcovers
7000
paperbacks
6000
ebooks
2500
audiobooks

your publisher will earn $162,148.50 in gross revenue, and you will have earned out 115.3% of your advance.

You will also have earned $4,590.63 in royalties!

Did your publisher sell subrights?

If your publisher has sold subrights (e.g. foreign rights) on your behalf, a portion of that amount counts against your advance.

This will reduce the number of domestic copies you need to sell to earn out!

If you enter those values here, they'll be factored into the rest of the calculations on this page.

Tip: You can also treat this as a box to enter any miscellaneous sales not covered by normal royalties, like bulk book box orders.

You earned $0 from subrights sales (counted against your advance), and your publisher earned $0.

Do you have a royalty escalator?

A royalty escalator is when your royalties increase after you sell X amount of copies.

For example, you may earn 10% on the first 5,000 copies sold, 12.5% on the next 5,000 copies sold, and 15% thereafter.

If you enter those values here, they'll be factored into the rest of the calculations on this page.

Who built this tool?

A trad pub author named Hana Lee did! If you like it, consider following me on Twitter.