4 ms·
What about we first start with the book publishers paying a fair share of royalties? 1.5% is nothing
by wdb 6y ago
What about we first start with the book publishers paying a fair share of royalties? 1.5% is nothing
- toby 6y agoMy first thought... when you realize they've been taking 96% as the gatekeepers for so long, Apple's fees don't sound as absurd. With traditional print publishing there is a lot of value add, but with ebooks they're really just choosing winners. Aside: I have met several people who admitted to downloading my books on torrents, and they gave me the $2 I would have made if they'd bought it :)
- 6510 6y agoThat's hilarious. I would give you $2 to just keep writing. Sadly the technology is just not there. Everyone is busy welding the next digital prison for popular walled gardens. Building a forest of plastic plants.
- ownagefool 6y agoIt's sad that books don't have the equivalent of steam sales. I have so many games I'll never play, because at $2 it seems rude not to but at £30, I gotta think about it.
- pkaye 6y agoA few of the tech oriented publishers have ebook sales on their websites from time to time. Like Apress has $6 per ebook during black friday. Informit was 55% off per ebook book.
- wdb 6y agoYeah, and the sad part is that the paper copies royalty is different from the ebook copies. And when someone buys your book in bulk or the publisher gives away promotion copies it get counted differently. Still waiting for hunderds of US dollars worth of royalties :(
- intricatedetail 6y agoI thought writers do it because it is their passion and publishers merely provide an audience for their art. Isn't the exposure and feeling of fulfilment enough? /s
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Finnucane 6y agoWho is only paying 1.5%? That is substandard.
- gamblor956 6y agoYou are off by an order of magnitude. Standard book royalties for first-time authors in the U.S. are 15% for paperbacks and 20% for hardcovers. Established authors can make more than that.
- opo 6y agoDo you have a source for that? According to this article, they are much less than that: >...royalties, at least among the top houses, are basically the same. Authors are paid, for hardcovers, 10% of the cover price on the first 5,000 copies sold, 12.5% on the next 5,000, and 15% thereafter. For paperbacks authors receive 7.5% of the cover price (occasionally with an escalator) and for eBooks 25% of the publisher’s net receipts. Many independent publishers pay lower royalties than these, but rarely do they pay higher. Competition between publishers takes the form of advance competition, with royalties generally being very similar, especially at the big houses. https://literaryagentmarkgottlieb.com/blog/are-royalties-fair-a-publisher-weighs-in https://literaryagentmarkgottlieb.com/blog/are-royalties-fai...
- gamblor956 6y agoYes, I was actually referring to the page you cited... It's the "authoritative" source for the Google search on US book royalty rates. See further down: "Under standard royalties, an author gets roughly 20 to 30% of the publisher’s revenue for a hardcover, 15% for a trade paperback, and 25% for an eBook. So, very roughly, every hardcover release that earns out brings the author something like 25% of all revenue earned by the publisher. This percentage would drop once the paperback comes out, if it sells in significant numbers." 10% of cover price is usually the same as 20-30% of the publisher's revenue. You only drop down to 1.5% territory if your books are being discounted, meaning, if they aren't selling at cover price and they've been put into the bargain bin.
- wdb 6y agoThe computer books market is different compared to your typical fiction books market. Looks like you are referring to the latter.