Quote:
Originally Posted by starrigger
The Authors Guild just released a statement about ebook royalties, in which they assert that 25% of net is worse for authors than 15% of list. (Coincidental timing, as far as I can tell; they made no reference to this announcement by Sargent.) I don't agree with them, but I mention it to point out that everyone's still arguing about all this.
I'll say to both parties that I wish they'd stop babbling about 15% royalties as though that's what most authors get. Most hardcover contracts pay 10% royalties, escalating toward 15% after x-thousands of copies are sold (e.g., 10,000 copies). In fact, many books never sell in such numbers, and thus many authors are getting 10% of cover price, not 15%. By my calculations, ebook royalties based on 25% of the net should be an improvement.
As for the reparation for the Amazon Event, I doubt that it was motivated by a lawsuit. Probably motivated by public relations. I applaud them for it, even though I don't expect to get more than pennies. (What I got killed on was sales of a new paperback, and they're only making reparations for estimated losses of Kindlebook sales.)
EDIT: Here's the link to the Authors Guild statement:
http://authorsguild.org/advocacy/art...h-the-big.html |
Thanks for the link to the Authors Guild perspective. I tend to agree with their take on the royalty situation, although I understand your perspective as well. If the publisher is only paying royalties that are 10% of list then a $25 book will make $2.50, but 25% of net for the ebook version at $15 is $2.63 (70% of $15 is $10.50 and 25% of that is $2.63). So authors making 10% royalties are coming out ahead (but it's actually not this simple).
From what I understand Macmillan has pretty much standard contracts with their authors at 15%. Furthermore, publishers that only give 10% royalties also pay larger advances to the authors. More often than not the author doesn't sell enough books to earn back this advance. Many of these authors then think they're getting over on the publisher, but the truth is that publishers
do this on purpose. The publishers know they can sign an author by giving a bigger advance that won't be "earned" back, but they then offer a smaller royalty. If you include the portion of the advance that wasn't paid back into the royalties that the author is making then he is really making around 12-13% royalties not the 10% his contract indicates.
With all of that being said, I don't have much sympathy with the Author's Guild. When Agency Pricing was first announced they were huge supporters. It would have been nice if someone from the Authors Guild had done some basic math a few months ago.