Publishing Trends has a preview of an invitation-only survey of US literary agents which was done by the Idea Logical Company and Market Partners International. Here’s a snippet. The full survey will be presented at Digital Book World. More details in the article.
50% think “the overall impact of e-books and their royalties” are helping their authors’ income on backlist contracts. 25% say e-books are helping earnings on new contracts.
A third have no preference for the “agency” versus “wholesale” model, while 27% have a preference for agency, and 17% prefer wholesale.
Two-thirds believe that if e-book rights are not specifically granted in the contract, they are reserved by the author for exploitation, regardless of any non-compete clause.
A majority believe 50% (or more) is the “fair” e-book royalty, and over 80% believe there will be an increase from the 25% standard over the next three years, with 25% of those believing it will “rise sharply.”
Over a third say they have negotiated e-book royalties of over 25%, including escalators and bonuses, on new contracts with major publishers.
