Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
I believe that publishers have been trying to get authors to sign up for 25% of the publisher's net.
The big difference, apart from the cost of the physical item, is the wholesale discount. For paperbacks, the discount is between 50 and 60%. For ebooks, it's around 30%.
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No trying about it.
They forced it back in 2009-2010.
http://www.teleread.com/authors-guil...renegotiation/
The way it works is *nominal* hardcover royalties run around 15% of cover (give or take a couple percent) and paperbacks run 8-9% of cover, give or take a self-dealing scam or two. With typical hardcover list prices of $25-30 that works out to $4-5 per book, regardless of retail price, and the publisher gets maybe $12 gross (on an honest 45% wholesale discount) and $5-6 net after shipping, pulping, and warehousing costs.
With a typical BPH ebook at $12.99 under agency, the author gets $2.25, the retailer gets $4 and the publisher nets $6.75. Under wholesale, the retailer usually got anywhere from $7-9 and the author about $3 per ebook. With Agency, the publishers earn less, but they happily watch consumers pay more.
Originally, ebook rights were considered derivative rights, like audio, and authors earned 50% royalties which is why the publishers changed the rules once ebooks started bringing in real money.