Authors Guild (finally) talking about deep discount clauses

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

True but only just (I assume reprinting backlist isn't what we are discussing).

Penric's Demon 6 Jul 2015 by Lois McMaster Bujold

recommended


http://www.amazon.com/Penrics-Demon-...dp/B0114LJ3BU/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Penrics-Demo...dp/B0114LJ3BU/
http://www.amazon.ca/Penrics-Demon-L...dp/B0114LJ3BU/

She's just getting started on her indie side.
She may be working off a multi-book contract with BAEN. Or she likes how BAEN treats her Vorkosigan books.

As I said, it is a spectrum. Some authors do both indie and tradpub projects or are indie in some markets and tradpub (by choice or obligation) in others. Diane Duane is one of the latter.

Lately the BPHs have started demanding world rights to prevent the latter; wouldn't do to have the authors learn how to manage their indie operation well enough to consider going full time indie, after all.

[pdurrant]

I believe that Baen only usually contracts for non-exclusive world ebook rights. If so, Baen authors are entitled to put out their own ebook editions.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I don't know about Costco, but how could selling a book through Amazon, B&N or Kobo be considered "outside of ordinary retail trade channels"?

By declaring by fiat that they are.
(Few authors can afford to litigate predatory contract clauses they already signed. Plus, in the olden days even something as basic as asking for an audit could get you blacklisted. Even those that could afford it dared not.)

The "logic" they can argue is that "ordinary retail channels" are the thousands of full price channels served by Ingram and Maker & Taylor, mostly independents and newsstands, and that Amazon, Costco, and the chains are deep discount outlets. Which is something they can control simply by setting high list prices and discounting off that.

Tradpubs are middlemen.
And, like all middlemen, they try to maximize their take from their distributors and minimize their payout to suppliers. High list prices combined with deep discount clauses let them do both. The dual model system works because the high list price bakes in enough margin into the old-school distribution channel to satisfy all the middlemen while letting the publishers meet the deep discount terms on direct deals with the big retailers. (It's not a bug, it's a feature.)

Thing about it: they can price a book at $20 or $30.
At $20 with a 40% discount, they gross $12 and pay a royalty of $3.
At $30 with a 55% discount, they gross $13.50 and pay a royalty of $3.15.

Many authors would look at the total payout and not see the 50% drop in royalty rate.

As for ebooks...
Well, ebooks are hardly a traditional channel, are they?
They are even accounted for separately with separate royalty rates. The deep discount clauses don't distinguish, though, and if crafted "correctly" (and crafting gotcha clauses "correctly" is a core competency in Manhattan publishing) by specifying the discount royalties in terms of fractions of the base royalty instead of specifying the actual rate they can reduce ebook royalty rates as low as into the 8% range. And, of course, if they declare the baseline list price as the print list price (which most ebook retailers do) the result is that even $14 ebook sales qualify for deep discount accounting.

Interesting game, huh?
Used car salesmen are in awe of BPH execs.

Contract clauses are a lot like tech product features; it they exist, they will be used. If they are used, eventually they'll be abused.

[JwkOKC]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Good to see someone is doing something to protect the producers of the art, but I'm not sure I agree with your above comment. I am personally yet to find any decent self-published works. The exception is The Martian and that was subsequently picked up and traditionally published.

You do realize, don't you, that the Liaden Universe (TM) stories began as self-published, and that Steve and Sharon continue to self-publish via Smashwords?

In this, as in everything else, Sturgeon's Law applies! 90% of everything is crud, to paraphrase...

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by JwkOKC

You do realize, don't you, that the Liaden Universe (TM) stories began as self-published, and that Steve and Sharon continue to self-publish via Smashwords?

In this, as in everything else, Sturgeon's Law applies! 90% of everything is crud, to paraphrase...

They did not. They were first published by Ace in 1988/1989. After Ace dropped them in the mid-list crash, they started self publishing stories and didn't pick back up with a publisher until 1999 when Meisha Merlin picked up Plan B. Some time after the death of Meisha Merlin Baen picked them up.

Greg

[JwkOKC]

Originally Posted by gweeks

They did not. They were first published by Ace in 1988/1989. After Ace dropped them in the mid-list crash, they started self publishing stories and didn't pick back up with a publisher until 1999 when Meisha Merlin picked up Plan B. Some time after the death of Meisha Merlin Baen picked them up.

Greg

According to several of their "About this book" sections they formed a team before 1980, and created Pinbeam Publishing to self-publish their chapbooks while attempting to sell their larger works. Their account of events certainly leaves the impression that without the self-publishing effort, via the 300-baud BBS systems of that pre-Internet era, they could not have achieved the success that they now enjoy.

However, I sit corrected (it's painful to stand at my age). Thanks for filling the gap in my knowledge!

[fjtorres]

Hey, let's hear it for the Brits!
While the AG talks (softly) about publisher abuses but spends its time and effort slavishly defending the five year old conspiracy (a moot point by now) their UK counterparts are actually doing something about tradpub misbehavior:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/so...uggling-317464

The Society of Authors is seeing a number of "once well-known authors" apply for assistance to its Pension Fund, intended to help those who have fallen on hard times - when with fairer contracts allowing rights reversion they could be making an income from their backlist, SoA chief executive Nicola Solomon has said.

Speaking at the FutureBook Author Day this morning (Monday 30th November), Solomon said that the SoA was now earning around £7,000 a year per title from republishing the work of novelist Catherine Gaskin, who left her estate to the author body. When she died, all her work was out of print, but the SoA was able to revert the works. That £7,000-per-title sum is far more than the Pension Fund is able to offer in its bursaries, which are around £2,000 a year, Solomon said, "yet many of our authors are unable to persuade publishers to revert the rights to even quite moribund titles."

Reversion clauses are just one of the areas where publishing contracts are unfair to authors, Solomon said, reminding her audience that the typical annual earnings of authors has fallen to £11,000 a year. "The terms publishers are asking for are no longer fair or sustainable," Solomon told the Author Day delegates.

Solomon repeated her call for the government to pass legislation to protect authors, in line with the Consumer Rights Act, and in line with laws in many other European countries, with the SoA currently engaged on campaigning for so-called CREATOR contracts, which are clearer, offering fair remuneration, operate a "use it or lose it" principle on rights exploitation, have limited contracts terms, recognise author ownership of their work and have fair and understandable clauses on accounting.

Their proposal actually sounds sensible:
http://www.societyofauthors.org/soa-...-writers-group

At a minimum, they are focusing government attention in the right direction: predatory contracts. And pointing out the viability of avoiding those contracts altogether.