Entries tagged with “royalties” from Tools of Change for Publishing

Report: Random House Shifts Ebook Royalties to Net Receipts

Mac Slocum
October 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

Richard Curtis says Random House has announced a shift in its ebook royalties in a letter recently sent to literary agents. From E-Reads:

Commencing December 1, 2008, the new royalty rate for sales of ebooks will be 25% of the amount received for all sales, Random's letter goes on to state. What does Random House actually receive? Most e-book retailers take a discount of approximately 50% of an e-book's list price. Therefore, the amount received by Random House -- the amount on which the new royalty will be based -- is about half of the list. [Emphasis included in original post.]

(Via Jose Alonso Furtado's Twitter stream)

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New Rulings Let Pubs Create Digital Archives With No Additional Royalties

Mac Slocum
July 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

We often discuss the limited utility of "exact replica" digital editions of books, magazines and other content, but that same level of pure duplication could prove useful to publishers who reprint back issues in digital archive products. Law.com says two recent rulings allow publishers to create and sell exact digital archives without paying freelance photographers and illustrators additional royalties:

A publisher, according to the en banc majority, may reproduce a freelance photographer's work in a reprint of the original collective work (such as a magazine, newspaper or encyclopedia) to which that photographer contributed; or a revision of that collective work; or a later collective work "in the same series." Reproduction of copyrighted photos in a new work without permission would constitute copyright infringement.

In 2001's New York Times v Tasini, the U.S. Supreme Court found that publishers who post freelancer-created material through Lexis-Nexis and similar online databases must first get permission from the freelancer. The difference between Tasini and these latest rulings lies in "exactness" -- new products (Web sites, databases, mobile initiatives, etc.) require permission from freelancers, but 1:1 digital reprints require no further permission or payment. (Note: Presumably, most publishers now use carefully-worded contracts that stipulate digital permissions. These current cases apply to pre-digital contracts and older material).

In the majority opinion for Greenberg v National Geographic Society, one of the two recent cases, Judge Rosemary Barkett discusses the finer points of the Tasini framework:

Because the freelance authors' articles were "presented to, and retrievable by, the user in isolation, clear of the context of the original print publication" ... the publishers could not claim a privilege ... Thus, the "crucial fact" for the Supreme Court was the databases' ability to "store and retrieve articles separately within a vast domain of diverse texts" ... The articles were presented to the user "standing alone and not in context."

In Greenberg, National Geographic was in the clear because the digital archive it created included the same text, formatting, page numbers and advertising as the original print-based magazines; the digital material was not accessed "in isolation." This is an important distinction. If the context of the original print publication -- images, ads, pages numbers, etc. -- is not readily available or apparent to the end user, there's a chance publishers will not be covered by the "exact archive" privileges.

Law.com notes that add-ons, such as search engines that show results from across digital archives, do not transform reprint archives into new products.

(Via Exact Editions)

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Survey of Publisher and Author Reaction to HarperCollins Move

Mac Slocum
April 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

HarperCollins' new no-return/low-advance business is generating plenty of discussion.

Kassia Krozser from BookSquare:

If HC can pull this off, it will restore my faith in humanity. In a low-margin business, it just makes sense for everybody. And now that printing presses are moving ever-closer to true on-demand printing, the crazy process of overprinting in anticipation of theoretical demand can end.

Emily Gould at GalleyCat echoes the margin-friendly sentiment:

... publishers are routinely forced to overpay their name-brand authors in order to keep them, making it impossible for even bestsellers to earn out. And they also routinely overbid on debuts, doling out big advances to "unproven" authors whose sales rarely measure up to expectations. So eliminating advances in favor of a 50/50 profit split makes total sense, then -- at least, it does for authors who are already known quantities."

The positivity isn't universal. Author Paul Witcover has a decidedly different perspective:

Here the talk is of "profit-sharing," with the author foregoing an advance and (perhaps) splitting the net proceeds with the publisher. As a writer, I'm very, very leery of this approach, especially as implemented here.

The advance vs. profit sharing debate is touched on elsewhere, as well. In an unrelated but relevant post, Joe Wikert analyzes the $300,000 advance given to Stuff White People Like blogger Christian Lander:

Divide the $300K author advance by the $473K publisher receipts [Wikert's estimate, based on 75,000 copies sold at a discount of $6.30] and you get 63 percent. In other words, Random House would have to pay the author a royalty rate of 63 percent (against net) in order for the author to earn out that $300K advance after selling 75K copies.

The current discussion also relates to Evan Schnittman's "flat-fee" suggestion from last summer (link via read20 listserv):

I propose that trade contracts move to a flat fee or payment for the standard rights associated with publishing a book. This fee would function just like an advance in that it would be paid on signing, delivery and acceptance, but it would be the only expected payment for the work.