At FutureBook, Philip Jones has a look at the current status of digital royalties. There appears to be some ambivalence going around the publishing industry at the moment, as even though some agents are reporting getting rates better than the current 25% industry standard, publishers are still largely adamant that they will go no higher. This makes Amazon’s self-publishing operations, offering 70% royalties on the e-books they sell, look more attractive.
HarperCollins’ Worldwide chief executive Brian Murray points out that the 25% royalty rate is better than the 16%-18% authors traditionally get on print books, and that there should be other ways to earn authors more money than just raising their royalty percentage.
“There is a lot we can do to give readers additional value, such as enhanced e-books. Because they sell for a higher price that is, in turn, going to raise the pay for authors.” He said the publisher was trying to assist bricks-and-mortar shops, citing a recent deal to make its titles available on the Espresso print-on-demand machine.
Stephen Page, CEO of Faber, warns that publishers need to demonstrate the value they’re adding to writers—show what they’re doing and why it’s worth the money they’re taking. Jones notes that may be true, but they also need to figure out how to get to where they can pay higher royalties, or agents are going to start taking their properties where the money is.
