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Royalties -- particularly author royalties -- are a number one priority here, CR.
Our author royalties are much more generous than at other houses. But even the in-house team is on royalties on each title handled (the equivalent of a small fraction of the author's) rather than salaries.
Tony and I have waived our own royalties -- our SOLE means of income -- for the past two years to finance development (thank ye gods for understanding, hard-working and supportive wives, eh?).
All benefits are passed on to authors, readers and other editors on the team. Tony and I work at least 16x7 for not a red cent. Although BB is a commercial enterprise, after ten years it has grown hugely and has a high rep, but it hasn't yet yielded a profit large enough to actually pay fees, salaries or bonuses to a hard-working professional team that's mostly been with us for the past decade.
That's OK. At least we can sleep straight in bed at night (on those occasions when we actually get there) ... unlike some I could mention in this game of soldiers.
We've also been working on an ambitious plan (I'll tell you about it when details are more firmly fixed) that will work to even greater advantage for a whole bunch of new and existing tried-and-tested authors and their established readerships ... and may even turn a buck for BeWrite Books at long last. Watch this space.
Do bear in mind that Tony and I (the partners in the biz) are NOT hard-nosed businessmen. I'm a writer and editor of 45-years professional standing in publishing and he's a doctor who turned to his passion for art and technology and joined me just over two years ago.
But as far as the business side of things goes, we don't ask our folks to rely on nothing but good intentions. The road to hell is paved with those. We study the ever-evolving game hard and try to keep a step ahead for everyone's sake. It's a tough juggling act between what we want to do and what we must do. And it's not always as much fun as a barrow-load of monkeys when we come across those whose only interest in books is in check books.
So now, everyone, please say "Awwwwwwwwwww."
Hoots toots the noo. Neil
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