Quote:
Originally Posted by jmaloney
The link seems to be explicitly about e-books (and I think that's what Scalzi was referring to as well). When you're referring to standard contracts, do you mean for e-books or physical books? I wonder if that may be where the difference is coming in here. I think the standard contracts for physical books are, as you stated, based on the list price.
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I was referring to both. In standard print contracts royalties are based on retail list. Per your link (thanks again for that), some publishers are moving to royalties based on wholesale.
Using invented figures for the sake of easy math:
1) Print contract specifies a royalty of 10% of retail list. Book has a list price of $30. Author receives a royalty of 10% of the $30 list price, or $3.
2) E-book contract specifies a royalty of 20% of wholesale. Book wholesales for $10. Author receives a royalty of 20% of the $10 wholesale price, or $2.
Royalties aren't calculated based on sale price in either case. As a retailer, I can (try to) sell the book for whatever I want. If I manage to sell a paper book for double list price the author doesn't get twice the royalty on that sale. If I want to charge half my wholesale cost on an e-book, the author doesn't receive half the royalty on that sale.