What is a book deal?

What is a book deal?

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A book deal is what happens when a manuscript is offered to a publishing company by an agent, although it can be by the author directly, if the publishing company wants to publish it. There is quite a long process that happens until you get to that point. You do a financial calculation which is based on the first years sales of the book and the amount that comes to is what you offer for the book. That is called an advance against royalties, so that is the advance against what the publisher thinks they will earn in royalties in the first years sales of the book. It can vary literally from £1,000 to £100,000 and beyond, depending on how bullish the publishing sales department envisions the sales of that particular book to be.