Lunchtime Lecture: Royalty Statement Deep Dive

For any published author who’s ever stared at a royalty statement and wondered, what the heck is this supposed to mean? this is the lecture for you! Three seasoned literary agents will tackle this frustrating but important subject with humor and lots of information that you can use to help decipher these statements. We will talk about what to look for, how they relate to your contract, why you don’t get them after a while, whom you can chase to get them, and what to do if you are pretty sure there is a mistake. We don’t claim to know EVERYTHING about every royalty statement as each publisher does them their own idiosyncratic way but we will look at three examples from different houses to show you what we look for as agents and help illuminate the mystery. Suitable for any alumnx, faculty or current students of the WCYA or Writing Program.

The three panelists are:

Jacqui Lipton is a literary agent, attorney and law professor who specializes in the business side of the publishing industry and represents clients from picture book through adult with a particular love for nonfiction. She founded Raven Quill Literary Agency which merged in 2022 with The Tobias Literary Agency, where she is a senior agent and head of the Adult Department (fiction and nonfiction). She also writes nonfiction and academic texts. Her most recent books are Law and Authors: A Legal Handbook for Writers (University of California Press, 2020) and Our Data, Ourselves: A Personal Guide to Consumer Privacy (University of California Press, 2022).

Victoria Wells Arms is a literary agent at Hannigan Getzler Literary Agency where she specializes in children’s and YA books, and select adult fiction, food books and estate clients. Before becoming an agent, she spent twenty years as an editor and was the founding editorial director at Bloomsbury USA’s Children’s Division, where she worked with many bestselling and award-winning authors. She has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults and is based in New York City.

Linda Camacho is an agent at Gallt Zacker Literary Agency. She started out on the other side of publishing and held various positions at Simon & Schuster, Writers House, and PenguinRandom House. She has an MFA in children’s writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and represents writers and illustrators across both the children’s and adult categories. To get a better sense of the projects she gravitates toward, be sure to check out LindaCamacho.com.