Bound to lose money?

I wonder if a Different Kind of Power will recoup its advance

Photo by Geilan Malet-Bates on Unsplash

For some reason, I didn’t get an advance copy of Jacinda Ardern’s new memoir, A Different Kind of Power, for which she was reportedly paid up to $1.5 million. That figure alone raises eyebrows, especially considering the small market for books about New Zealand politicians. To put it into perspective, Brian Edwards's biography of Helen Clark sold 9,000 copies and earned him $40,500 in royalties.

That’s a respectable sum in a New Zealand context. A far cry from Ardern’s advance, of course. But then, Ardern’s book doesn’t really exist in a New Zealand context at all.

Steve Braunias notes in his excellent review for Newsroom that the memoir seems tailored for an American audience. She explains New Zealand places with the kind of detail only needed by foreigners, and the narrative reads like American self-help. This is the American context in which the book exists, where political memoirs serve purposes beyond storytelling, and where Ardern remains popular with liberal wine moms.

Even so, will the book sell enough to justify that investment?¹

It helps to understand how publishing works. When an author signs a book deal, they often receive an advance. That’s not a bonus. It’s a payment against future royalties. The author earns nothing more until those royalties match the amount already paid. So if a politician receives a $1.5 million advance, they don’t see another cent until the book generates $1.5 million in royalties.

The New Zealand retail price of A Different Kind of Power is $59.99. Let’s assume it’s the same in the United States. With a standard 10% royalty, Ardern would need to sell over 250,000 copies to earn out the advance.

If the book sells even half that, it would be a record-smashing result. We can count on sales being much stronger than any New Zealand political book before. But by those orders of magnitude?

Let’s say it does smash records. Suppose the book sells:

• 60,000 copies in New Zealand (which would be phenomenal)

• 30,000 in Australia

• 20,000 in the UK

• 40,000 in the US and Canada (generous)

That gets you to 150,000 copies. That’s worth about $900,000 in royalties. So still $600,000 to go if the $1,5m is to be believed.

So why would a publisher pay an advance like that?