Quote:
Originally Posted by cmwilson
An author's royalties depend on what the author can negotiate with his/her publisher. Typically, after earning out the advance, the author gets 8-12% of the "net," which is cover price less costs, typically half the cover price of the book for a dead tree book. I don't know what the current royalty rate is for ebooks, but I doubt most authors are willing to take less for an ebook sale than a paperback sale.
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A small correction: most authors receive 8% royalties (or more) on the cover price of the book, not the net. It doesn't matter what discount is applied. That applies mostly for hardback books and trade paperbacks; MMPs and ebooks often have different royalty structures.
Sometimes authors receive reduced royalties for books they purchase themselves at a discount and in some other sales categories. But in general it's based on the full cover price. To agree to receive royalties on net is inviting disaster. The publishers could use all sorts of creative accounting to make it look like they never made money on a book, and the author would receive nothing past the advance. It should also be added that by the time an author "earns out" on a book, or earns enough royalties to cover the advance, the publisher has made money on the book. Also, with exceptions for big celebrity million-dollar advances, publishers base the amounts of an advance on how many books they think will sell, and usually they're pretty close, so authors often don't get more than the advance anyway.
I have heard that some publishers are attempting to reconstruct the paradigm and among the ideas being presented are offering the author much higher royalty rates (I have heard 25%) on the net. I just worry about the creative accounting I mention above--after all, 0% of nothing is 0. Also I find it fascinating that when attempting to find new ideas, the big publishers immediately think of screwing over the author. I think the new publishing paradigm is going to be smaller houses, heavy on epublishing, and even author/publishers like cmwilson.