Wednesday, November 14, 2012

It's not just Pippa Middleton: how on earth did they get that huge book advance?


Big fees don't always mean big book sales, so why do publishers keep paying them? Tim Walker finds out - The Independent - 12 November, 2012


As a celebrity publishing flop Pippa Middleton is in good company. Julian Assange was reportedly paid half a million punds for his memoirs, which sold just 644 copies in its first weekend. Arnold Schwarzenneger's stellar career and scandalous personal life could shift no more than 27,000 copies of his autobiography Total Recall in the month after its publication. He reportedly received a seven-figure advance from his US publishers. In 2006, Wayne Rooney agreed to write five books over 12 years for HarperCollins. His advance was £5m. The second book sold just 6,000 copies in six weeks.

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