Jessie cashes in

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch has signed a
$1 million agreement with Alfred A. Knopf, giving the injured former
U.S. Army private the chance to tell her own story, the publisher said
on Tuesday.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

Cub Driver wrote:


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch has signed a
$1 million agreement with Alfred A. Knopf, giving the injured former
U.S. Army private the chance to tell her own story, the publisher said
on Tuesday.

While I don't begrudge her the money, the choice of a questionable
ghost writer, released from the NYT for by-lining a story written by a
free-lancer means the whole project will be discredited.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
Cub Driver wrote:


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch has signed a
$1 million agreement with Alfred A. Knopf, giving the injured former
U.S. Army private the chance to tell her own story, the publisher said
on Tuesday.

While I don't begrudge her the money, the choice of a , released from the
NYT for by-lining a story written by a
free-lancer means the whole project will be discredited.


I thought splitting a million bucks with a questionable ghost writer was
pretty cheap. She could have done better.

Now much did you get for "When Thunder Rolled"? Had to be what 2-3 million
;-)


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038

"Leadfoot" wrote:

I thought splitting a million bucks with a questionable ghost writer was
pretty cheap. She could have done better.

Now much did you get for "When Thunder Rolled"? Had to be what 2-3 million
;-)

My royalties, if and when they ever arrive, will pale by comparison.
I'm planning on taking my wife to dinner. Somewhere nice...Carrabas or
Chili's maybe....



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038

Ed Rasimus wrote:

"Leadfoot" wrote:

I thought splitting a million bucks with a questionable ghost writer was
pretty cheap. She could have done better.

Now much did you get for "When Thunder Rolled"? Had to be what 2-3 million
;-)

My royalties, if and when they ever arrive, will pale by comparison.
I'm planning on taking my wife to dinner. Somewhere nice...Carrabas or
Chili's maybe....

Ed Rasimus

Uh huh...somewhere _quite_ nice I'd say...
--

-Gord.

"Ed Rasimus" wrote
"Leadfoot" wrote:

I thought splitting a million bucks with a questionable ghost writer was
pretty cheap. She could have done better.

Now much did you get for "When Thunder Rolled"? Had to be what 2-3 million
;-)

My royalties, if and when they ever arrive, will pale by comparison.
I'm planning on taking my wife to dinner. Somewhere nice...Carrabas or
Chili's maybe....

When I retired from the Air Force, I decided to write magazine articles
(electronic hobbyist magazines) while I went back to school. After selling my
first two articles for $125 each, I decided I would have to have about about
six articles a week in the queue to make any "real" money. They paid you
after publication, and my second article took 6 months before they accepted
it (I then put a clause in each article that non-acceptance after 8 weeks was
considered a negative, and they quickly rejected them).

Ah well... Maybe if you included a sorcerer and a boy with dark rimmed
glasses...

Now much did you get for "When Thunder Rolled"? Had to be what 2-3 million

Smithsonian Institution Press regards itself as a university press.
You do it for the honor of the thing.

Say Jessie's book sells for $24.95, and so does Ed's, and say that
they both get 10 percent royalties on the first 5,000 copies. (Jessie
may in fact do better than that.) Sounds like even money, huh? If only
it were so!

Knopf does the math this way: 10 percent of $24.95 is $2.495 per book.

SIP as a higher-math university press figures: okay, we had to give up
50 percent to the distributor, so we got $12.475 per book times 10
percent to the author is $1.2475 per book, or half as much.

I majored in guvmint, so it took me years to figure that out.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

Cub Driver wrote:


Now much did you get for "When Thunder Rolled"? Had to be what 2-3 million

Smithsonian Institution Press regards itself as a university press.
You do it for the honor of the thing.

Say Jessie's book sells for $24.95, and so does Ed's, and say that
they both get 10 percent royalties on the first 5,000 copies. (Jessie
may in fact do better than that.) Sounds like even money, huh? If only
it were so!

Knopf does the math this way: 10 percent of $24.95 is $2.495 per book.

SIP as a higher-math university press figures: okay, we had to give up
50 percent to the distributor, so we got $12.475 per book times 10
percent to the author is $1.2475 per book, or half as much.

I majored in guvmint, so it took me years to figure that out.

all the best -- Dan Ford

I notice that your excellent work on the AVG is showing in the Fall
'03 Catalog of Smithsonian as a past catalog, "Best Seller"--still in
print, still available, still a good read.

See, stop your belly-achin, the money keeps dribblin' in.

But, for the uninitiated, you've concisely spelled out the royalties
equation. Most folks are surprised.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038

On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 14:33:47 GMT, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

Cub Driver wrote:


Now much did you get for "When Thunder Rolled"? Had to be what 2-3 million

Smithsonian Institution Press regards itself as a university press.
You do it for the honor of the thing.

Say Jessie's book sells for $24.95, and so does Ed's, and say that
they both get 10 percent royalties on the first 5,000 copies. (Jessie
may in fact do better than that.) Sounds like even money, huh? If only
it were so!

Knopf does the math this way: 10 percent of $24.95 is $2.495 per book.

SIP as a higher-math university press figures: okay, we had to give up
50 percent to the distributor, so we got $12.475 per book times 10
percent to the author is $1.2475 per book, or half as much.

I majored in guvmint, so it took me years to figure that out.

all the best -- Dan Ford

I notice that your excellent work on the AVG is showing in the Fall
'03 Catalog of Smithsonian as a past catalog, "Best Seller"--still in
print, still available, still a good read.

See, stop your belly-achin, the money keeps dribblin' in.

But, for the uninitiated, you've concisely spelled out the royalties
equation. Most folks are surprised.


I know several people who write aviation history books. All but one
have day jobs that pay real wages. You almost have to be a writing
machine to make even a meager living from writing aviation history
books or magazine articles. The press run for these books may not be
very large, and it can be disheartening for an author to see their
quarterly or semi-annual sales figures - some of these books sell far
less than 100 copies per quarter.

It might as well be a hobby for many of these authors - the amount of
time spent researching a subject, dealing with archives, and tracking
down people/documents/photographs (much less finding a publisher)
costs much more than what the resultant book will ever repay for.

John Hairell )

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...

Now much did you get for "When Thunder Rolled"? Had to be what 2-3
million

Smithsonian Institution Press regards itself as a university press.
You do it for the honor of the thing.

Say Jessie's book sells for $24.95, and so does Ed's, and say that
they both get 10 percent royalties on the first 5,000 copies. (Jessie
may in fact do better than that.) Sounds like even money, huh? If only
it were so!

Knopf does the math this way: 10 percent of $24.95 is $2.495 per book.

SIP as a higher-math university press figures: okay, we had to give up
50 percent to the distributor, so we got $12.475 per book times 10
percent to the author is $1.2475 per book, or half as much.

I majored in guvmint, so it took me years to figure that out.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

You missed my wink ;-) I knew Ed wasn't making much if anything on his book

Sure does seem damn unfair. If Ed had been paid based on "bullets expended
against" I'm sure he'd have Jessica beat

OTOH she will have to deal with being too famous to work for a while.
Something she didn't ask for or have control of.