Some authors getting a bad deal on ebook royalties?

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Andybaby

for the NYT best sellers, I've heard the publishers are getting the same price they would for a hard cover. so they should get similar royalties. but in regards to the thousands of books that go for around 5.00 each. I don't see why they would get royalties based on if it was a 9 dollar sale.

I think the reason is that on a $9.00 paperback book's sale, the publisher is unlikely to get more than $4.00 from the distributor/wholesaler, and its from that $4.00 that the publisher's printing (and any other) cost comes out, along with the author's royalty.

Whereas for a $5.00 eBook, the publisher could and should (by being selective as to how and/or through what company they sell) be getting close to the $4.00 still and could be getting all $5.00... and, of course, they have no printing costs, shipping costs, storage costs, nor (probably) additional advertising costs.

So, in effect, the sale of a $5.00 eBook could bring the publisher in more than the sale a $9.00 pBook... so there is no need for the otherwise (somewhat more) understandable stinginess with author's royalties.

Originally Posted by Andybaby

anyone can publish an Ebook, so the author should get more money for an Ebook. the only people getting money off an ebook sale are the Author, The editor, and the advertiser.

Unless people want professional looking ebooks... in which case either a publisher has to be involved, or the author has to pay somebody else (whether royalties or a one-time fee) to do the publishing/eBook-making for them.

But, as the words leave my fingertips, I remember that I am the only person who can tell the difference between a professionally typeset book and one that could have readily been produced by a reasonably studious high-school student... so never mind.

- Ahi

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by cjcherryh

The generation of revenue by giving away an e-book is daily cited by some publishers as a benefit of their site. As a writer whose book is being thus dealt with by a certain publisher, I can state it is not beneficial: what they are doing is using it to promote their company's site, to generate sales---but I get a few dollars a year from this process, and see no added sales. Not only that, they thus hold it 'in print' and thus prevent reversion of rights. This is not a good thing.

Of all the many copies of my books in e-book release, I have yet to see any revenue---and most of them are pirated copies, or copies distributed by otherwise honest sites who have assumed based on their acquisition of a company that e-rights went with the sale. My publisher's legal department is now trying to straighten this out, and many have been withdrawn from sale, but neither my publisher nor I have received revenues from these copies.
Yes, it is publicity, which never hurts, but if no funds ever come through, where is the money going? Not to the creator, certainly. Not to the publisher of record. Somebody is collecting money from these sales. Who, I wonder.

I do understand the frustration you have with books that are not being legally distributed. That said, when you write "Of all the many copies of my books in e-book release, I have yet to see any revenue..." I find myself compelled to ask a specific question. Surely "The Paladin" and "The Sword of Knowledge" available over at Baen/Webscriptions are legitimate, right? And they do pay you royalties, yes? It's only two books, and one of them is a co-authored omnibus at that, so the royalties aren't going to be earthshaking or anything. But surely you've gotten royalties on electronic sales of at least these two.

And, while we're at it, I've purchased a couple of your books from the Sony store. They pay too, yes? If not I have even bigger beefs with them than my complaints about DRM. DRM sucks for the customer alone. Not paying the author sucks both for the author (immediately) and also for the customer (in the longer run when the author who didn't get paid either writes less or refuses to make eBooks available).

I sure hope that the Sony store and Baen (at least) are paying the correct royalties. I'd expect good behavior from Fictionwise as well. I sure hope that "I have yet to see any revenue" is a modest overstatement, and not the literal truth. And if it IS the literal truth, a whole bunch of us need to have some words with some publishers and eBook stores!

Xenophon
(who loves eBooks, but really believes that authors need to get the royalties to which they are entitled.)

[pilotbob]

I wonder if this thread would be better in the writers corner area? I don't really see any "news" here.

BOb

[sirbruce]

Well initially the "news" was that publishers might be pushing authors into ebook contracts with royalities based on sale price rather than list price. But I agree that it has wandered somewhat afield from that.

Edit: 1,500 posts!

[cjcherryh]

Well, my publishers have been in correspondence with two of the major companies that have not paid us, and hopefully this will get straightened out. I would love to know who supplied those files, and how they represented themselves.

I have heard, too, that many of the pirated files are in really bad shape, which is no way to read. I'm a nit-picking perfectionist when it comes to my typescript, and to think of it out there with missing paragraphs and missing punctuation is just disturbing. It's like somebody stealing your horse and then riding him around covered in mud and burrs and with a sign on him saying he's yours. Sigh.

There are a lot of odd things about the e-book industry. To get a book on at some companies, you have to give them a lot of books. OR use their press for print books, which is priced pretty high. If you're a print author, you can get in---but if you're a younger print author, with only a couple of backlist in your control, you can't. We tried to communicate with one such to ask about this policy, and what it got us was a barrage of phone calls from a determined woman who wants to help us get in print---I haven't had such an assault since (in my foolish youth) I sent one book to a pay-to-read agent.

The industry right now is the wild west. There are companies charging full hardbound price for a download. But the author only gets the usual percentage. There are companies that bounce from format to format, trying to invent the wheel themselves, rather than going with something established. There's one company gobbling up another, with all the attendant questions of rights.

Interesting times to try to do business, is what I'll say.