If Macmillan contracts now start at 15% royalty for hardcover, that's a change since I last signed a contract with Tor (now part of Macmillan). But I've not heard anything about a general shift to contracts starting at 15%.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
The general rule I've heard, at least for print publishing is that taking royalties on net starts at stupid and goes downhill from there.
When I managed a bookstore, we paid about 55% of list to the distributor. I don't know the current numbers, but I would imagine the most a publisher is likely to see on a book is 45-50% of list - and probably closer to 45%.
So if we take net receipts as being 45% of list - then 25% of net turns into 11.5% of list. This is an improvement over 10% of list - but not over the 15% of list they're talking about.
It will be an improvement on Amazon e-sales though.
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The whole discussion about royalties based on net refers to ebooks, not paper books. If Amazon pays the publisher 70% of list, then 25% of that is 17.5% of list. That's how the agency model works. (There may be a subtraction off the top for DRM fees.)
I still think it's way too low, but the Guild seemed to be mixing up their argument by saying that 25% of net is worse because the list prices are lower on ebooks. Part of their point, I think--but not too well expressed--was that publishers are making more profit on the ebook deal, and aren't sharing as much with the authors as they should. I agree with that.
To criticize the Guild because they supported the agency model and now don't like the royalty cut misses the point, I think. The agency model has in many cases resulted in lower ebook list prices. Where it hurts the consumer is in eliminating healthy price competition among retailers (such as the discount program at fictionwise). But it's hard to factor in with plain dollars and cents the other thing it did, which was eliminate Amazon's loss-leader pricing, which publishers and the guild alike felt was predatory, and which had Amazon on the road to a near-lock on the ebook market.
I'm not saying I
like the agency model. On balance, I don't. But I don't see it as black and white the way many here at MR seem to.