A book royalty is the amount of money that you, as author, receive from the sale of each copy of your book once printing and distribution costs and the retailers commission are deducted from the retail price.

If you take out one of our Independent Publihing services you will retain 100% of the royalties in your book. What's more is that you will be able to choose the amount of royalties you would like to receive.

The normal retail price of your book (i.e. the amount it would usually sell for at a high street bookstore or online with Amazon) is made up of the following amounts:

Unfortunately not. Once the retail price is registered with various distribution channels, it is set. Therefore an important consideration is at what retail price point your book should enter the market. You'll be given ample time to decide this before setting it stone.

Your royalties will usually be paid to you directly into a bank account of your chooing on a semi annual basis, in arrears. Our distributors will send you a statement of royalties by email which will include the number of books sold and the royalty amount due to you. The royalties in such quarter must reach a minumum of £20 before we can pay these through to you.

Sales are calculated in respect of individual ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers). Every book that is available to buy has its own unique ISBN number, which is the way the industry can track down the publisher and/or distributor. The system was first developed by WH Smith in 1966 and has since been adopted internationally. On January 1, 2007, ISBNs changed from 10 digits to 13 digits and now start with 978 or 979. It should appear on your preliminary pages and, in barcode format, on the outside back cover.

If you choose our Independent Publishing services we will provide you with an ISBN for your book. If you would like the ISBN in your own name (some authors prefer this) then that is absolutely fine as well but you will need to take care of this yourself. The UK ISBN Agency can be contacted by any of the following: Tel: +44 (0)870 777 8712 (9am-5pm) E-mail: isbn@nielsenbookdata.co.uk - ISBNs can only obtain them in batches of ten which cost, at the time of writing, £100.

Please not that revised/updated editions of books need new ISBN numbers; if you produce your book in both paperback and hardback versions, they need separate ISBN numbers; and once allocated, ISBN numbers must not be re-used.

If you would like to bulk buy your books (say an order of 100) we can arrange this for you at a discounted price. Just give us a call to let us know your requirements.

The retailers' commission is factored into the retail price but it is ultimately up to the individual retailer as to how much they want to sell your book for.