In a typical year in the United States, fewer than one percent of new titles account for roughly half of all print sales, forcing publishers to rely on a narrow band of breakouts to subsidize the thousands of books they release annually. At the same time, approximately three-quarters of trade revenue now derives from backlist, converting retained rights into durable income streams that can persist for decades after acquisition. Across formats, authors generally receive between 10 and 25 percent of a book’s cover price, while publishers and their partners retain the remaining share to finance advances, editorial development, production, storage, marketing, distribution, and retailer discounts. The result is a system in which economic leverage rests largely with the institutions that package and distribute books, rather than with the writers whose work underwrites the model.