The Meilandjes have already published quite a few books together with their biographer Jan Dijkgraaf. How much does all that yield? Millions and millions of euros. “But the costs are still going down.”
Four books about the Meilandjes have already been published, namely Martien, Erica, Maxime and De Familie. Each one has a hefty price tag and hundreds of thousands of copies have been sold. The family and their regular biographer Jan Dijkgraaf have made a lot of money from this, he says in the Weekend.
6.9 million euros
According to Jan, it really concerns millions of euros. The advantage is that they have jointly founded their own publishing house. “I made good money on the books, more than if I had done it at a regular publisher,” he says. “But millionaire? No, I didn’t become that.”
What about then? “If you multiply the 300,000 books sold by the sales price of €22.99, you arrive at a huge amount (namely 6.9 million euros, ed.). But a lot depends on that! 40 percent alone goes to the bookstore – or even 47 percent if it goes via bol.com.”
‘There’s still a lot to be done’
Then you also have VAT, says Jan. “And the printing costs, administration costs… In the end, about 11 euros remain per book. Everything still has to be paid for.”
Jan has a 42 percent share in Osjato, the publishing company. “All in all, I receive a director’s salary of 4,700 euros gross per month. This is mandatory for the Tax Authorities. It is a nice amount, and on top of that I received one dividend.”
Old house
What did Jan do with that dividend? “We used that dividend payment to buy a small old house in Friesland. We have also done a lot of work on our own house. The only thing I really bought for myself is a Lada Niva that is almost 50 years old. It cost 13,000 euros.”
All in all, the Meilandjes have brought him a lot of peace. “We have had times when our house was underwater and we were seriously concerned about our financial future. If we had died then, our children would have had to refuse the inheritance. You don’t want that. Now they will happily go to the notary.”