Advances

An advance is money the publisher pays you up front when the contract is signed, counted against your future royalties. If you receive a 1,000 dollar advance and your royalty works out to a dollar per copy, you see no further payment until the game has sold 1,000 copies, the point where the advance has "earned out." After that, royalty payments flow normally.

Board game advances are small compared to book publishing, and many deals include none at all. When they appear, they are commonly in the range of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, often framed as roughly the expected royalties from the first print run or a portion of it. A large advance for a first-time designer is rare. Do not read the absence of an advance as an insult, because in tabletop it is normal, especially with smaller publishers who are conserving cash for manufacturing.

The critical protective term is that the advance be non-refundable. A standard advance is a guarantee: if the game underperforms or is never published, you keep the money. If contract language would require you to repay an unearned advance, that is not an advance at all, and you should push back. An advance also functions as a signal of commitment, since a publisher with money already invested in your game has a concrete reason to actually publish it.

When negotiating, an advance is one lever among several. If a publisher cannot offer one, you may trade for something else: a stronger reversion clause, a slightly higher royalty rate, a guaranteed minimum print run, or a publication deadline. For most designers, terms that ensure the game actually reaches the market are worth more than a few hundred dollars up front.