I think it was anghara who went back through all her contracts and figured out the breakdown -- and it's pretty complex. There are other authors who've done the same, and none of them are easy-looking on the math. It's like, 10% on hardback until you sell over X amount and then you get 15%, and then on paperback you get 6% through X amount and then 8% through Y amount and after that 10% -- that kind of "well, so at book 10,001 you're getting this much but then you get this much and that much..."
Agents spend hours figuring this stuff out... so I don't have to, right?
Ebooks are, from everything I see, a much flatter level. Granted, they don't reward you if you sell a bazillion copies (as if that's gonna happen) by paying you more, but neither do they penalize you overly for not being awesome enough to warrant a hardback.
In some ways, ebooks are just much more egalitarian, though I wonder if the reason for that is more to do with the fact that many of them seem to have been started up by publishing outsiders who were 'net-savvy and of the "everyone jump right on in" internet mindset of the early years. Who knows.
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Date: 15 Jan 2009 06:12 am (UTC)Agents spend hours figuring this stuff out... so I don't have to, right?
Ebooks are, from everything I see, a much flatter level. Granted, they don't reward you if you sell a bazillion copies (as if that's gonna happen) by paying you more, but neither do they penalize you overly for not being awesome enough to warrant a hardback.
In some ways, ebooks are just much more egalitarian, though I wonder if the reason for that is more to do with the fact that many of them seem to have been started up by publishing outsiders who were 'net-savvy and of the "everyone jump right on in" internet mindset of the early years. Who knows.