Quote:
Originally Posted by K. Molen
Thank you for this. It cuts to the core of my own thoughts on this topic. As I touched on in my opening post, my primary concern and the primary reason I'm pondering the morality of this behaviour, is the risk of cheating an author off their earnings. I'm glad to read that it's not necessarily a black and white issue.
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You can buy a book two or three places in the US and the author might get a different cut. For example, if it sells at Walmart versus Amazon or B&N. Walmart works special deals with publishers and the author agrees to various deals beforehand. Book subscription type things also pay authors at a different rate--and this is all domestic sales.
Stephen King gets better commissions than does Joe Nobody Author. Some debut authors get better deals than others.
In short, there is almost no way for you the buyer to know what the author is going to receive. Buying "new" direct from a publisher site is your best bet for supporting most traditionally published authors; hardback and audio tend to pay the largest cuts. So, for example, I buy Frank Tuttle's books direct from his publisher site. I *think* he gets a larger cut of the sale, but again, it could be different for each contract/book (not just each author).
Indie authors are a different bag and most likely buying direct from their blog/website yields them the most monetary gain; however there are rankings and visibility yields when buyers buy from any retailer (the main retailers anyway--B&N, Amazon wherever, Kobobooks, etc).
But when you say it isn't cut and dried, you have the right of it! No wait, you said black and white.
