I was aware the other royalty rates were below industry standard, as I said in my post. This is something Harlequin did internally. This licensing practice was not something authors or agents were aware of. 1.94/.06 is not anywhere near a 50/50 split. As a result, the 50/50 split has become this breakdown. In this case, Harlequin has licensed these rights to its own company. The contract in question says that the author -me- receives 50% of net. " You also need to remember that no publisher ever held a gun to an author's head and made them sign a contract." They are not taken into account in this business deal.
"To really evaluate the math and support an argument that the author was underpaid, you need to include ALL the costs that come into play."Īs a professional author, I have costs, too. You missed the part in my post where I stated that this clause that I'm addressing pertains to ebooks being published now. A publisher has many, many costs involved in bringing a print book to market, not the least of which is actually printing the book (which takes $), mailing it to distribution points, There are also returns (stipped copies that cost money to print and ship and netted nothing in return), etc. Nothing personal, but the math isn't accurate. "So Harlequin makes a total of 1.94, and I make. But now they have a choice, and no longer have to be screwed if they want to write for a living. That didn't end well for those companies.įinally, you need to remember that ten or 12 years ago the world was much, much different.Ī decade ago, authors were being screwed. Didn't something happen in recent US history about deplorable factory conditions? Weren't laws changed to fix those conditions? And those factory owners had the same lame defense: "If you don't like it, go work somewhere else." Instead of pursuing her dream and following the only option available, Ann could have worked at a factory instead. You also need to remember that no publisher ever held a gun to an author's head and made them sign a contract. Just like it's absurd that a company printing and distributing books gives the PERSON WHO WROTE IT 6 cents per copy. Should we put a cost on the time spent away from her family while writing? Really? Should we then also include Ann's costs? Her home office. To really evaluate the math and support an argument that the author was underpaid, you need to include ALL the costs that come into play. But the future is going to be a very different place. Print sales and long contracts they've already signed will keep most in place for a while longer. What are the advantages of breaking from NY.
So far I've had half-a-dozen #1 NY Times bestselling authors email or speak privately with me about how digital publishing works. We'd started at 40% of gross and felt that was too low. We unilaterally raised our royalty rates at Cool Gus Publishing because we felt it was fair. If I could have thousands of authors clamoring at the gates to get published, I'd lowball too. Second, pretty much all legacy contracts suck with regard to reversion and eBook royalty rates. They are worse than the business standard.
She said they were standard in the business.įirst, that's not true. And an editor from HQ actually confronted me later, demanding to know if I was Bob Mayer and if I had something negative about HQ. I made a comment in San Diego that Harlequin was the Darth Vader of publishing.