posted
Does anybody know a ballpark or an exact figure of how much Asimov was worth at his death? I mean Doubleday payed him $50,000 for Foundation's Edge and that was just one book and he had 500 total at his death.
posted
This is a very complicated question, because are you measuring it in the dollar as we know it today, or what today's dollar was worth at the time of his death? Are you talking liquid assets, or including property values? What about trusts set up in the names of his children (not really sure if he had any, actually), or charitable trusts? When someone has that much money (and I assume he had a lot, just from speaking engagements alone), wealth is an amorphous thing. And 'usual advance' doesn't mean much, considering how very many years the man wrote. It matters *when* he said (allegedly) 'my usual advance is $3,000'. In 1948, that would be a Very Big Deal. Nowadays, Stephen King (the only comparison I can think of right now) would get paid a $3,000 advance to write a letter to the editor. (Hyperbole, of course) In any case, the information is undoubtedly private. You can estimate, but you'd be wrong. So why are you asking?
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Read his autobiography, I don't remember how much it was, just that it was a lot. Keep in mind he got paid for walking down the street, not just for writing books.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
