Re: Re: consequences of shift to ebooks

> But, in the US, how often do prices go down?

OFTEN.

Book clubs.
Sweetheart deals for large purchasers (walmart)

In my tech contract the royalty chart is over a page long explaining  
which percentages I get under exactly which conditions.

> Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you somehow, but, perhaps the  
> misunderstanding comes from how royalties are paid. US publishers  
> mostly pay a percentage of the cover price, not of the actual sale  
> price to the customer or retailer.

Unless you are so unlucky to get a percentage of wholesale like I do.  
There are a fair number of contracts like that.

> The author sells 1 thing to the publisher -- a manuscript. The  
> publisher then turns that manuscript into multiple copies (a  
> potentially unlimited number, really), that it can sell.
>

The author does not sell one copy. The author sells a right to  
publish... a right to make copies.

> The reason that the author generally wants a royalty instead of a  
> fixed payment is because the number of copies is potentially  
> unlimited. Instead of getting $1,000 for his manuscript, the author  
> gets 10% of the $14.95 cover price for each copy that the publisher  
> manages to sell. The only thing that the percentage does is change  
> the amount per copy IF the cover price changes.

And almost always that will be less than the $1K.

>> BUT, this doesn't change the fact that the percentage of the cover  
>> price is better than any system I can puzzle out of what you are  
>> suggesting.

It pretty much is.

dej
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