Someone needs to investigate these book advances. Publishers don’t have this sort of money. Who is providing it?
Every major pol in the country, from both parties, seem to get these payoffs.
Good question.
I have thought that since the payments are called an “advance”, that these are payments to be netted against the actual sales of the books, and will be netted against whatever royalties are due to the author, when they settle up accounts when actual sales roll in.
And, in the case of a book that doesn’t sell, conceivably the author could owe money back to the publisher, since it was an “advance”, not an actual specified contractual amount of an owed payment to the author.
Are these payments really advances; does an author of a dud like this Cuomo book get to keep the money paid as an advance?
It is ultimately published by a German publishing conglomerate with revenue well over $20B per year that is controlled by the offspring of Nazis. Seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertelsmann#Ownership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Mohn
“Who is providing it?”
WE, the US Taxpayers, do.
What’s happen is that public library systems all over the country will goose sakes by buying copies with taxpayer dollars that their patrons will never read.
That’s the way it usually works.
Taxpayer funded institutional sales.
And I know of a few systems that pay retail prices, so taxpayers get screwed twice.
Public servants, my ***.