Ebook rights

Mon 14 Dec 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

The NYTimes reported yesterday on Random House’s rights grab on their backlist.

We’d like to point out to authors and agents that our royalty rate on ebooks is 50% of the net.

On the somewhat typical $9.95 ebook Small Beer Press receives 50% of the retail, so call it $5. So the author receives $2.50. Not bad. That’s more than the 7.5-10% of retail that we can do on paperbacks and equivalent to 10% of retail on a $25 hardcover.

On the small percentage of ebooks sold directly from our site the math goes like this:

Retail: $9.95
Paypal: $0.59
Net: $9.36

Author receives: $4.68

Just saying.