What Is Royalty Income ? How Can You Get It?

Royalty income usually refers to regular payments you may receive if you have published a book, created a CD or another creative work that remains in distribution. For example, if you have written a book, your contract with your publisher should include a clause whereby you would receive a percentage from all copies of your book sold in stores.

Royalty rates for books and other creative products vary from one company to another. It is, however, fairly common to receive about 8% for books. This means that for every copy sold of a $10 book, you would receive about $0.80. In some cases, your royalty rate may increase if your book sells more copies.

The best way to get royalties is to publish a book or create a CD and ensure that the company in charge of distributing your work writes up a contract whereby you receive a portion of the profits for each copy sold. Then, when you have such a contract, try to advertise your book on a personal website, blog, or with universities, in order to ensure that more people buy it. It is, however, important to remember, that unless your book becomes very popular, you should not expect to receive a steady income simply from royalties. Consider that if your $10 book sells 5000 copies and you receive 8% per book, you would still only make about $4000.