British author Val McDermid received a letter from Poisoned Pen which publishes here non-fiction book A Suitable Job for a Woman. According to the article the publisher wrote:
Our contracts basically provided that ebook royalties would be the same as hardcover books – generally around 9% of retail price. Consequently I am unilaterally changing all contracts where we have ebook rights to pay 25% of the suggested retail price. Since there have been, for all practical purposes no ebook sales prior to late last year you’ll not see ebook royalties until the first quarterly statement in July. But lest any of you have plans on buying a new Mercedes with your ebook royalties, I’d suggest a Big Mac with fries and a medium coke will be more in line with the economic reality.
Lest our readers object to the low 9% rate, the article says: You may think that the hardcover royalty seems ungenerous. But, in the UK, royalties in that region are common, because so few books are sold at a discount that would trigger the full 10% or more.
This is indeed a nice trend, if we compare developments at Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, etc., where they have gone the opposite way.
Of course, now Amazon is also increasing royalties for ebooks, so Poisened Pen is not all alone in this. But still, it is a nice development, not only for authors, but I think also for publishers: in the long run, I think this is a win-win arrangement for all parties involved.
Bo, Editor
EbookBrothers.com