Ebook Royalty For Writers And Authors:How Much Money Can You Receive?

Creating a top quality ebook is not an uncomplicated task:it takes substantial time and effort to write a piece of work that is factually correct,to-the-point,as well as enjoyable to read. So unless you are just writing for the joy of it,you have got to prudently assess what your alternatives are in terms of your upcoming royalties,in order for you to really cash in your ebook. How much royalty you will obtain is depending on a number of factors.

Of course,“payment”or “royalty”is not an entirely easy matter to talk about. Without doubt,the concept of royalties is in essence about the actual amount of dollars or pounds sterling that you would get with a particular publishing contract. But there are also other aspects of an agreement or contract that can be just as important,and conceivably even more so. Such aspects can be,for example,the length of the deal,the issue about the precise time for payments,etc.

However,in this present article I shall mostly discuss the total amount of money that you can expect from different kinds of royalty arrangements. Even if there are lots of different types of arrangements in the publishing world for writers and authors,I shall in this short article outline only four kinds of royalties:“list price percentage|,“net receipts percentage”,“net receipts percentage”,and “full list price”.

1. Publisher’s “List Price Percentage”Royalties

The “List Price Percentage”royalties model is perhaps the most “intuitive”of them all. This royalties model is relevant when writers approach major publishing houses to market their ebooks (or even ordinary books). This model practically boils down to that the writer will receive a certain percentage of the ebook’s (retail) list price. The precise percentage typically varies between 10 and 20 per cent.

For instance,if the royalties agreement is such that the writer gets 15 percent of the $30 the ebook is sold for,the author would get a royalty of $4.50 per book (0.15 x 30).

This kind of royalties model has earlier been “standard procedure at leading publishers such as Random House and Simon &Schuster. However,these publishing houses have now migrated to the second royalties model,the “Net Receipts Percentage”.

2. Publisher’s “Net Receipts Percentage”Royalties

Another royalties model is the “Net Receipts Percentage”,or the “Net Proceeds Percentage”model,which may be used when authors negotiate with major publishing houses to publish and market their e books. Presently,a lot of publishers make use of this royalties model,including Macmillan,Random House,and Simon &Schuster.

In this set-up the author will obtain a particular percentage of the net sales of the ebook. This percentage typically amounts to between 10 and 25 per cent of the net sales.

For example,if the royalty agreement is such that the author gets 20 percent of the net sales,then the computation may look something like this. Assuming a list price of $25,and also assuming that the net sales for the publisher is,say,60 per cent of the list price (i.e.,the retailer gets 40 percent),the author would get a royalty of $3 per e book (0.20 x 0.60 x 25).

3. Self-Publisher’s “Flex-Price Net Receipts Percentage”Royalties

A third alternative could be to publish your ebook on your own,but still use one or a number of retailers and distributors to market and sell it. For example,you can use sales channels such as Lulu.com.

In this model the author will get a given percentage of the net proceeds of the e-book,and in this sense it is quite comparable to the second model above,the one named “Net Receipts Percentage”. But even if the models are similar,the “Flex-Price Net Receipts Percentage”has the major advantage that your share per book will be dramatically higher,assuming that you will sell your ebook for more than just a dollar or two.

Another big dissimilarity is this. Since you are self-publishing your material,you might actually determine yourself what the list price should be. That way you will have additional flexibility in terms of setting a product price that may yield maximum royalty paychecks.

4. Self-Publisher’s “Full List Price”Royalties

A fourth option is to do everything by yourself. In that case you will be doing not only the publishing of the e-book but also the marketing,advertising,and promotion,as well as the sales. This means that you almost surely have got to have your own website where you promote your ebook.

Note,though,that you do not inevitably have to have a very complicated e-business solution integrated with your website. You may instead utilize a more simple and cheap solution such as the payment processing used by paypal.com,or other comparable solutions.

Anyhow,the amount of royalty to be anticipated from this fourth royalties model is fairly easy to compute,as you will keep all the earnings for yourself. Naturally,however,depending on the exact solution you are using,you may wish to adjust the figures,in order to properly account for costs related to services such as your site or blog hosting or the payment processing,etc.

Conclusion

It might not be very easy to decide which royalty scenario suits you best. One issue is,for example,how involved you are in marketing. If you are very interested in promoting your own ebooks on the internet,then royalties scenarios 3 and 4 may very well be well-suited for you.

However,if you are essentially a writer,and not so attracted to internet marketing,it might not be a bad idea to aim at the first and second royalty models. The downside with these two royalty models is,however,that it is not so simple to get published;but if you don’t get published,you can always try models three and four as your plan B.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Johnny Jones has a background in project management and publishing,and is currently a contributor to the EbookBrothers.com website,where he writes about ebook marketing,inluding topics such as ebooks royalties etc.

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