In this video, I explain how much you can expect to earn from a children’s book as an author/illustrator and how earnings have changed over the years – I warn you it’s not good news!

I made a poll here on YouTube a few years ago asking how much people thought children’s authors earned per book. Most thought 25-50% Youtube stopped polls so exact results have disappeared.

A publisher gives an author or illustrator an advance to pay for time spent working on the book and as a goodwill payment. This advance has to be paid back, bit by bit, from book sales. When it is paid off, the author then receives royalties on further sales.

Over the years, as publishers and booksellers have been bought and sold and amalgamated into international corporations, the earning structures have changed.

The relationship between author and publisher has changed too. Authors are now more like raw material suppliers than the partners or collaborators they were in the past. I

f you think you can turn out a children’s book and make some cash – kids books must be easy, right? – think again. Writing a book is only the beginning. The marketing is everything and the competition has exploded since I first began writing.

I should add that the example of £10 a book is for easy maths. To this day, I’ve never had a book sold for £10!