Re: consequences of shift to ebooks

--- In [email protected], Mary E Tyler <dejahvu@...> wrote:
>
> > 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.
> 

Those are not price changes. Those are special prices  for specific
markets.

Price changes happen when the cover price is at one level, and the
publisher then chooses to change that price on the cover to another level.

I'm well aware that publishers have many exceptions for specific ,
lower profit situations. They are in the contracts I sign also, as
well as the contracts I've done royalty accounting for.

> > 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.

Yes there are. Its not standard, and the Author's Guild cautions
authors against those contracts. Its my understanding that they are
most common in textbooks and technical subjects.

But mathematically they aren't necessarily any worse thanstandard
trade contracts. You just need to know what discount the publisher, on
average, sells at. For example, if its a 50% discount and you are
getting a 20% royalty, then its about the same as a 10% royalty on
list price in a standard contract.

Problem is that the discount often fluctuates, depending on what
customers they sell most of your books to.

> 
> > 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.

I didn't say the author sells a copy. I said that the author sells the
manuscript. You are right, that the publisher gets the right to
publish. That's what I meant, when I said the author sells the
manuscript. Sorry that wasn't clear.

Kent




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