It should be noted that publishers could easily pay authors more--but it does not have to be royalties against potential sales. There are models out there where the author gets a higher percentage--but not so large an advance or no advance at all. This model is usually seen with small to medium sized publishers.
Quote:
|
And if I was an established author I would want both print and ebook. Mainly to earn a higher revenue as pbooks still outsell ebooks, but also for the satisfaction of seeing the print book on the shelves and holding it in my hand etc. But that maybe is just me.
|
It's nice, but it's not a necessity. A necessity is sales. Authors earn a higher percentage from ebooks, which means many more paperbacks have to sell to keep up with ebooks. For a mass market paperback, authors earn about 35 cents per copy. For an ebook selling at near the same price they are likely earning 20 to 40 percent of the list price.
This holds true for indie as well, only more so. I can earn 60 to 70 percent per ebook while I only earn about 10 percent for a print copy (or far less depending on where it sells because of third party cuts along the way). So, while a paperback costs approximately 10 dollars in my print world, I might earn 1 dollar per copy. An ebook sells for approximately 2.99-- and I earn closer to 2 dollars per copy sold.
It should also be noted that in some genres and at some publishers, ebooks outsell print copy already--and in fact, several ONLY do ebooks now unless the sales are high enough to warrant stretching into the print world. This is also certainly true for most indies.