We’re all used to the idea that publishers are struggling to stay afloat in this brave new e-book-and-pirate-infested recessionary world. This is why they can’t pay greater royalties on lower-marginal-cost e-books, and why they want to keep their e-book prices high so consumers don’t come to devalue e-books (or to protect sales of hardcovers, whichever explanation you prefer). But every so often publicly-held corporations are required to let the public know how they’re doing, and Simon & Schuster just announced that, thanks to e-books, its recent revenues are up considerably. For the three months to...

That's what the The Bookseller is saying today.  According to the article agents are expecting that escalators will become standard rather than an exception. An escalator clause means the royalty rate changes according to the level of sales. One leading agent said: "A number of publishers in the UK and the US are now offering escalating royalties [on e-books] . . . I want to work totally with publishers but I think they should at least be open to an escalating royalty rate on e-books." He said offering an escalator would be a way of bridging the gap between the royalty rate...

The Bookseller has some interesting coverage of the London Book Fair, but I don’t have time right now to go over all of it. I’ll focus on the one bit that just leaped out at me. A number of execs—David Shelley of Little, Brown, Richard Mollet of the Publishers Association, and Stephen Page from Faber—explained that fighting online piracy is costing publishers a bundle, and is one of the reasons publishers cannot afford to raise e-book royalty rates as some publishers have been requesting. In the FutureBook blog, Philip Jones notes that there was some skepticism from the audience, and also...

Renowned SF author Norman Spinrad, two-time President of the SFWA, has a guest post on the SFWA’s blog proposing “a viable and just business model for the ebook age.” Spinrad sees the current turmoil as being a result of multiple parties each working toward its own benefit at the possible expense of all the others. Tension between writers, publishers, and traditional retailers threatens possible havoc in the market, as in the case of physical retailers slowly but surely being driven toward bankruptcy. Up to a point greed drives upwards and onwards. But when greeds collide,...

From The Bookseller: Literary agent Sonia Land has warned book publishers they will lose control over authors’ digital backlists unless they improve their royalty offer. Land this week announced her decision to publish 100 of Catherine Cookson’s novels as e-books through her company Peach Publishing, bypassing Cookson’s physical publishers Transworld. Other agents warned against the move, one calling it "tantamount to a declaration of war". In a column in this week’s Bookseller, Land called on publishers to up their rates from 25% to 50% of net proceeds from e-books to secure digital rights. Land said the publisher forced her...

According to Publishers Weekly, Other Press is raising its royalty for ebooks to 50%.  Currently the royalty rate stands at 25%. The publisher says that the 50% rate will go into effect once the advance has been earned out.  In addition they are raising the base rate from the 25% mentioned above to 30%....

I hadn’t been paying much attention to the court ruling issued in the case of white rapper Eminem suing his record labels for more money. But then I saw this piece in Techdirt about it, and had to reconsider. It may not have direct implications for e-books specifically, but it definitely has larger implications for digital media as a whole. Eminem’s producers sued the Universal subsidiary that was handling his music for a greater share of royalties. The rationale was that music sales generate a much lower rate of royalties than music licenses (for use in TV shows, commercials,...

Hugo Award-winning author Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who has written a fairly large number of novels and edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Pulphouse Magazine, has written a remarkably thorough and insightful blog post comparing the traditional publishing industry to the new world of electronic self-publishing. Rusch posits that adapting to the new world of electronic self-publishing “requires a radical change in thinking,” which many established authors aren’t ready to assay yet. She explains that the traditional publishing operates on a fundamental assumption that can be summed up in two words: “trust me”. Writers, she...

Hot on the heels of Microsoft vs. Barnes & Noble vs. Apple vs. Amazon comes another interesting juxtaposition. Today on J.A. Konrath’s blog, Konrath interviewed pro-published writer Barry Eisler, who has just turned down a $500,000 offer from a mainstream publisher in favor of self-publishing his own book. Eisler explained that this level of advance would take forever to earn out at the royalty rates paid by traditional publishers—and by selling through Amazon, he can charge less and keep 70% of the proceeds. There’s a lot of discussion about how the traditional publishing market is falling...

From the press release: In the wake of continuing debate between publishers and authors regarding the establishment of fair and reasonable royalty rates for the emerging E-Book platforms, Hannover House has announced today a new standard rate of thirty percent of E-Book net revenues for authors. This new rate for all Hannover House authors surpasses the current industry standard of twenty-five percent E-Book royalties being offered by most major publishers. Hannover House is the entertainment and publishing division of Target Development Group, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: TDGI). Initial E-Book releases from Hannover House will launch in June, and...

The author of Blonde Lightning, Earthquake Weather, Angry Moon, and others, told his prospective publisher to take a walk after he was offered a 25% ebook royalty rate. In a blog post entitled Maybe the Mayans were right ... but they were talking about the publishing industry he discusses the negotiations he had for a new book and killed the deal, saying to the publisher: "I'm just amazed at this. No amount of "platforming" can justify this rate. If this is the way publishers are going to try to hold onto the business, then I think they are doomed. If...

It’s right around the one year anniversary of the week that Amazon removed Macmillan books’ buy buttons in its snit-fit over the implementation of agency pricing, resulting in a lot of authors losing a week’s worth of royalties. And just in time to mark the anniversary, an interesting tidbit of information pops up on eReads. Richard Curtis reports that in a cover letter attached to the latest Macmillan semi-annual royalty statements authors have received, Macmillan CEO John Sargent makes note of an interesting adjustment to author royalties. Feeling that authors shouldn’t have to suffer on account of a battle...