My three books for adults are free on Amazon kindle for the next three days, 5-7 March (Pacific Standard Time) (click on covers)

It’s not very lucrative for me, I get $0 of the $0 flowing in, but it is a nice way to generate a bit of interest. And it’s not like being an actual contracted author is that much more lucrative.

One of my favourite stories about writers and their lavish incomes comes from my author friend, Chris Daffey (A Girl, A Smock and A Simple Plan, Penguin), who was once at a dinner party when the topic of novel advances came up.

‘Well how much would you guess I received?’ Daff asked.

His questioner, a lawyer, decided to high ball it. ‘I dunno, a million dollars?’

I just laughed out loud again. My advances for the three adult works have been $20,000 (Players) $12,500 (Making News) and $10,000 (Australia United). Generally, the contract allocates the author 10% of recommended retail price, so each unit sold earns $2-3 against the advance. Once the advance is earned out, those $2-3 (minus agent’s commission) start stacking up in the author’s account like gold bars.

If a book sells 10,000 copies, it’s considered a bestseller. Those in the literary stratosphere, like Tim Winton, are doing well to sell 150,000 copies. Most novels sell closer to 3000. Mine were all 5-8000. Respectable, but not big bucks for a year’s work.

With kids books, shorter writing time means advances tend to be smaller (I’ve received $2000-4000) and the royalty is split with the illustrator, so we get 5%.  That means on Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas, I get about $1.45 per hardback, 85 cents per paperback. If it’s sold in Scholastic clubs and fairs (those handouts your kid brings home from Primary School) it’s halved again. That title’s been around a while, so I have a six month royalty cheque in my bag for $167.55. USA sales are not included in that, so there’s no need yet to cancel the layby on the DeLorean.

I call every book a Tatts ticket, because they’re mostly financially worthless, but there’s a slim chance one will take off and cause a spluttering, fountain of coins to pour down the chimney and spill across the floor and cause a choking hazard to my one year old. I call this ‘casino maths’, and I do casino maths whenever I receive a new book offer.

Which actually happened this week (the offer, not the coin spewing chimney). ‘The Cow Tripped Over the Moon’ was picked up by Scholastic, and will be propelling me into the BRW Rich List in $1.55 increments when it’s published in … well the letter of offer says sometime before 2018.

Of course I’m not complaining. Financially, they may be Tatts tickets, but from a personal fulfilment point of view, being a published author is wonderful. My titles once sat on a bookshelf at Borders with Tim Winton’s and Jeanette Winterson’s . I’ve been read out loud  to thousands of kids. I’ve been on a Sydney Writers Festival panel with the guy who wrote ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ (Q&A). I’ve been Alison Lester’s warm up guy in Northern New South Wales. I’ve hosted a literacy series. I’ve been sent kids’ artwork, and even a pair of shorts emblazened with Harry Highpants. Eddie McGuire once had to answer a question about my novel at a live taping of the ‘The Footy Show’. I’ve been compared to Nick Hornby in most Australian metropolitan dailies, and I’ve got a handwritten letter from Nick Hornby saying he ‘hoped to get around to reading my novel.’. And I’ve got something quite lovely and permanent to show my kids, something that shows who I was and what I could do.

If you would like these books in their least lovely and least permanent electronic form, download away. If you end up reading one (or more), I’d love a rating or a review on Amazon /Goodreads.

The promotion ends Friday afternoon, Australian eastern time.