Waterstones, Amazon and the Indie Bookshop: how much money do they actually give to small publishers?

Spoiler: those cover prices are not going up and into the pockets of your publishers...

This weekend I’m in Scotland, launching psychological thriller ‘The Sleepless’ by Liam Bell (a cult who believe sleep is a social construct designed by the state to keep us docile…) and historical crime ‘The Unpicking’ by Donna Moore (three generations of ‘hysterical women’ in Victorian Scotland, who fight against systemic sexism and oppression at the hands of the police and those in power). The Unpicking was reviewed in The Herald yesterday as ‘a stirring tribute to resilience, hope and self-belief’!

Last night we launched to happy faces in Stirling’s Book Nook and today I’m hopping over to Glasgow to Argyle St Waterstones for a sold out event!

Sadly, these last few weeks have been filled with anxiety about cashflow - something I never thought we’d have to worry about as a publisher, because I have a very budget-conscious brain! This year, all small publishers have had a big shock, as the way distributors work has changed: they now transfer the costs of postage and handling onto the publisher, including surprise charges such as a £30 admin fee for processing an invoice, or four, or £30 for a printer delivering the books on a pallet size the distribution warehouse was not happy with... plus VAT which we’re not currently exempt from…

These charges must be paid monthly, but the payment for book sales from retailers remain at an average of 90 days (and don’t even get me started on how long Amazon extends this average - see below…). This means that, despite book sales to bookshops being at a rate I’m personally thriller with, we have been due no funds between June - October. The cash collection from retailers is so slow, we actually ‘owe’ money on these charges. I’m *hoping* to receive funds in November.

I know that, especially for debut authors, there can be shock around how much they receive in terms of royalties from bookshop sales. I’ve also seen conversations online recently with deep suspicion of traditional publishers, and thought it would be interesting for me to break down what a typical £10.99 novel and that novel’s author might receive from each retailer sale. I’ve also broken down the charges faced by the publisher at distribution level.

Shall we start with the devilish Amazon, Scribblers?