Two of my sims wrote a novel. One sim wrote a good novel and got tons of money for it from the delivery guy. The other sim, no...she wrote a bad novel.
Any reason why one sim writes good and the other one rights bad?

Also can other sims from the hood buy the novel? And if they buy the novel, does the money go into the author's funds? And what about residual income if people keep buying the novel?

Or am I thinking too advanced?

More creativity skill causes higher-paying novels.

When your sim writes a novel, the money he or she collects is the only money he or she gets for it - after that it disappears and is never seen again. You can't sell the novel to other sims. You see, sims don't like reading novels. The publishing companies buy them and place them in book stores, but they haven't added any bookstores to the game, so ims don't buy them! So no royalties for you!

wow...didnt maxis think that would be an asset to the game??!! I want my sims kids to get rich and live off of residual income

I don't have ft yet (frigging aspyr) but I do remember people saying you can pull the novel out of your bookcase and then sell it as any other object in ofb.

There is also a hidden writing skill that continues to improve even after you reach Creativity 10 so the value of your novels will continue to increase.

yeah, unfortunately you can't do that. i was hoping so too.

you can give away novels that you have written, but you don't get to keep a copy for yourself.
I had a sim read a custom novel, then I deleted the bookcase, poor guy, walked around the whole house, before he set the novel on a desk. I then put the novel in his inventory, and had him invite over a sim from another household. He gave her the novel using the "give gift" social interaction. So when I play in her house, she can read the novel, but he and his household no longer have a copy!

There's a bug that you can use to "copy" novels. Place a novel on end table and then place the end table into Sim's inventory. Get it out of the inv. and get the novel off of the table. Then place the table alone in the inventory (empty this time). Click on the asp. or business rewards icon (don't go to the live mode!) and then return to the inventory, find the table. It should have new copy of the novel on it.
Repeat as many times as you want.