Author’s guild on e-book royalties

Feh.

Are they talking about 15% of the catalog retail price for the e-book, or for the printed version?

Either way, 15% is fair…

Doesn’t matter much to me, because I see no evidence that e-books are going to take off anytime soon.

Authors Guild Warns on S&S e-Book Royalty Proposal – 7/18/2008 7:17:00 AM – Publishers Weekly

The Authors Guild has sent out an advisory to its members suggesting that they carefully review a letter from Simon & Schuster that looks to add an amendment to their contracts that will set the standard royalty for e-books at 15% of the catalog retail price for e-books. The Authors Guild alert makes three points about the proposal: members should discuss the amendment with their attorney or agent; warns that, depending on a member’s particular contract with S&S, the amendment may grant S&S rights that otherwise would be retained by the author; and notes that members should be aware that the amendment may affect their ability to obtain a reversion of rights.

The alert further advises that members should “keep your powder dry,” when negotiating e-book royalty rates, suggesting that members try to retain the right to renegotiate e-book royalties. “The Authors Guild expects that the 15% of the retail list price will be the low-water mark for e-book royalties,” the Guild speculated. “As the e-book market develops, authors with clout will doubtlessly insist on a more reasonable share of e-book revenues, and the industry will have to adapt.”

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