Creating a top quality ebook is not an unproblematic job: it takes substantial time and energy to compose a piece of work that is truly correct, to-the-point, and enjoyable to read. So unless you are just writing for the thrill of it, you must carefully weigh in what your possibilities are in terms of your upcoming royalties. How much royalty you will receive is depending on a variety of factors. Of course, "payment" or "royalty" is not an entirely uncomplicated matter to discuss. Without doubt, the concept of royalties is basically about the particular quantity of dollars or pounds sterling that you may get with a particular publishing arrangement. But there are also alternative aspects of an arrangement or contract that might be just as important, and perhaps even more so. Such aspects can be, for instance, the duration of the deal, the issue about the precise time for payments, and so forth. However, in this present article I shall mostly talk about the total sum of money that you might expect from different kinds of royalties arrangements. Even though there are lots of different types of agreements in the publishing world for writers and authors, I shall in this short article sketch out only four types 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 "easy to calculate" of them all. This royalty model is applicable when writers or authors approach major publishing houses to market their ebooks (or even ordinary books). This royalty model basically boils down to that the author will obtain a certain percentage of the ebook's (retail) list price. The exact percentage typically varies between 10 and 20 per cent. For example, if the royalty arrangement is such that the writer gets 10 percent of the $20 his or hers ebook is sold for, the writer would get a royalty of $2 per book (0.10 x 20). This kind of royalty model has previously been common at top publishers such as Random House and Simon & Schuster. But these publishing houses have now migrated to the second model, the "Net Receipts Percentage". 2. Publisher's "Net Receipts Percentage" Royalties Another model is the "Net Receipts Percentage", or the "Net Proceeds Percentage" model, which is utilized when authors approach major publishing houses to publish and market their e-books. At present, a lot of publishers use this royalties model, including Macmillan, Random House, and Simon & Schuster. In this case the author will get a given percentage of the net sales of the ebook. The exact percentage typically amounts to between 10 and 25% of the net sales. For instance, if the royalty deal is such that the author gets 20 per cent of the net sales, then the computation might look something like this. If we assume a list price of $25, and also assuming that the net sales for the publisher is, say, 60 percent 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 The third alternative would be to publish your ebook on your own, but nevertheless use one or a number of retailers and distributors to market and sell it. For example, you could use sales channels such as Lulu.com. In this set-up the writer will obtain a particular percentage of the net sales of the e book, and in this way it is very comparable to the second model above, the one named "Net Receipts Percentage". However, although the royalties models are similar, the "Flex-Price Net Receipts Percentage" has the major benefit that your cut per book will be radically higher, assuming that you will sell your e-book for more than just a dollar or two. Another big difference is this. Since you are self-publishing your material, you can actually choose yourself what the list price should be. Because of that you will have further flexibility in terms of setting a product price that will generate 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 involved in not only the publishing of your e-book but also the advertising, as well as the sales. This means that you almost surely have to have your own website through which you promote your product or products. Note, though, that you do not inevitably have to have a very complicated and expensive e-business solution integrated with your website. You may very well instead use a more simple and cheap system such as the payment processing used by paypal.com, or other comparable solutions. In any case, the amount of royalty to be expected from this fourth arrangement is fairly easy to calculate, as you can keep all the proceeds for yourself. Naturally, though, 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 the site hosting or your payment processing, etc. Summing up It may not be very easy to choose which royalty model suits you best. One factor might be, for instance, how involved you are in marketing. If you are very interested in promoting your own ebooks on the internet, then royalty models 3 and 4 may very well be good for you. However, if you are mostly a writer, and not so attracted to internet marketing, it may not be a bad idea to try to go with the first and second royalty models. The downside with these two royalty scenarios is, unfortunately, that it may not be so easy to get published; but if you don't get lucky, you can always try models three and four as your plan B.
Article Source: http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit
E-book royalty to authors of e-books might vary considerably depending on the kind of deal or contract you have. This article covers four kinds of royalties arrangements that any aspiring author or writer would be well-advised to be informed about.
Johnny Jones is interested in publishing and project management, and is at present a contributor to the EbookBrothers.com website, where he writes about ebook marketing and ebook business, including topics such as {ebook royalties for writers and authors etc. For a free subscription to the EbookBrothers.com Newsletter (with free articles, tips, and tricks on how to make money with ebooks, how to write ebooks, and how to succeed in marketing ebooks online), please visit http://ebookbrothers.com today.
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 5 4 out of 5 3 out of 5 2 out of 5 1 out of 5
