Publishers' royalties

Nemo

Nemo

Please settle an argument!

Do publishers offer you 10 per cent of the cover price, or 10 percent of the net profit from the book?

Obviously not all offer you 10 percent but whatever percentage the question remains.

Many thanks in advance.

NEMO

Stirling

My career isn't at this point, but I have read that on a book retailing at £12, you would recieve a royalty of 50p.

Sorry, I can't be more specific.

Carol

As I understood it it was the contracted percentage of the selling price- assuming there was no advance which has to be earned back before you receive royalties.
Dorothy or Jay will know the correct answer.

midia

Hi Nemo!
Royalties are paid on net - so only when all costs are taken out is the writer then paid and it is more like 5 - 7% of net sales rether than 10%.
Although I was given good advances on my books, my royalties are 5% of net profits. Considering most book buyers buy books from the publishers at a huge discount (usualy around £1.00 per copy for a paperback) the authors actual royalty per copy is around 5 pence per copy sold.
Although this is somewhat disheartening, it does get your foot in the door and does open new doors in the publishing industry. One of the reasons why big publishing companies take on celeb's autobiographies is because they can guarantee that they will sell in there thousands and like wise why they can offer celeb's big advances.
At the end of the day it is the publisher who is investing into a writer and doing all the hard work - marketing, advertising, designing, printing etc. The only way round it is to self-publish, but in my experience you have to be very good at marketing yourself in order to make a good profit.
Hope that helps.
Debs
xxx

Katy

Hi Nemo. I'll receive 10% of the net proceeds from each book sale once my book is published in July. Royalties are usually paid once or twice a year (once a year in my own case, at the end of each January). I think most publishers' royalties are based on net price, the percentage varies though.

Nemo

I'd like to thank you all for your emails.

I have been offered ten per cent of the NET profits, by a publisher. All my "mates down the pub" type people tell me I ought to get ten percent of the cover price.

I didn't know if the publisher is trying to exploit me or my mates are misinformed.

It sounds like my mates have the wrong end of the stick and that 10% of net is about right.

Has anyone else any thoughts on this?

Also, when they say NET profits, what expenses do they take out? And do they take it all out before you get a penny, or pro rata?

For example: if it costs them £1,000 to have 1,000 copies of my book printed, and say they pay out £1,000 to proofreaders, publicity, other expenses, that comes to £2 per book. Do they take £2 off the sales income of each book and give me 10% of the rest?

Or do they wait till the book has made £2,000 in sales, pay themselves back what they paid out, then give me 10% of what's left?

NEMO

SilentTony

Wow Nemo it does all sound daunting and confusing. t just illuminates that neither the writing of the book or either being published is the end of the work.

I do have to say though, hopefully I'll have a similar problem to you one day.

Good luck with the publisher and your book.

Katy

Many congratulations on your book by the way!

What publishers seem to do is add a cover price to the book - let's say £10 - and that is the price you and me as members of the public pay to buy it. However, the publisher themselves sells it to book retailers (like Waterstones, Amazon or your local bookshop etc) at a range of discounts - anywhere from 25% to 60% less than the cover price - so that the retailer has room for their profit and overheads too. If the publisher has sold it to a retailer at, say, 50% discount, the amount they got for the book (inlcuding all their expenses) was £5 - and you as author get 10% of that net price, which'd work out (in that example) at 50p per book sold.

They also sell to different book retailers at different discounts, hence no 'fixed' price for the author per book - although you could work out a likely range of net fees based on these types of discounts. I think that's more or less the gist of it anyway! Good luck!

Carol

If you have any doubts on definitions of contract terms, get them checked out legally.

moira

Hi Nemo, Katy and Debs have already said that royalties are usually a percentage (usually around 5-10%) of the net price of each book. Net in this case means how much the publisher sells it for - so if the retail price for Joe Public is a tenner, the book store will probably have bought it for considerably less at discount, say Waterstones buys it from your publisher at six pounds, you will get (eg) ten percent of that six pounds. Actual contracts vary in the amount of royalties/advances and each retailer will get different discounts as already said. As the author of the book, you will probably also be entitled to get the books at a discount and you can obviously charge full retail price for these and make up a bit more cash that way and copies that you personally buy (to sell on or give to friends etc) will still get you the same rate of royalties at whatever price you buy them for.
I didn't get an advance for my book but I will get 10% of net royalties and I can buy any books by that publisher with a very good discount. Check your contract thoroughly - the Society of Authors has a vetting service you can use - providing you join of course!
Hope the whole thing is making sense to you.
Well done, by the way.

Clarissa

The question will be answered when you get the contract in which all the terms should be clearly stated. And being a contract it is negotiable. However, there is not only the 10% of the sales price that you must consider but also, should your book become a bestseller (you never know!), the 10% should go up to 12% after the first ? thousand. All this after the publisher has recovered the advance, should there be one.
But in any case, it is always best to get professional advice on this - agent, solicitor or the like.
Good luck with the book!

Stirling

Do you friends have any experience of knowledge of publishing for them to be saying these things?.

Also don't forget you have to take booksellers (60%) and distributors (15%?) discounts too.

themoabird

10% of net profit is quite good, actually. I've had ten or so books published, some with big publishers (e.g., Penguin), and I'd say that 10% of net is on the good side (especially if this is your first book). The only time I've got significantly more than this is when an agent has been able to negotiate a higher percentage on the back of the success of a previous book.

themoabird

Oh yes, something else - net can sometimes mean tiny per book payments. One of my books ended up as part of the 3 for 2 promotion that Waterstones et al have going. The publisher was selling it at a massive discount to the book chains. But it's worth it (for the publisher, at any rate) because of the numbers that shift (with my book 10,000 in 3 months - compared to only 1500 which sold at full price).

Stirling

Blimey!.  10,000 in three months?.

Just goes to show it can be done.

themoabird

"Just goes to show it can be done."

I think a lot of it is luck, really. It's a non-fiction book. It was ideal for the Xmas market, and it was piled up at the front of pretty much every Waterstones, Borders, Books etc, etc.

I could tell you the story of another book of mine which managed to get itself stocked by W. H. Smith, and then sold a grand total of... wait for it... six copies in the first six weeks!

Nemo

Thanks for all the replies and good wishes for my book.

So the publisher does not deduct the costs of producing your book then, before applying the 10 percent that the author gets? None of you has mentioned it, so I assume I've got it all wrong.

So it's 10 percent of the price the publisher sells the book to a bookshop or distributor at? Is everyone agreed that they don't deduct the print costs?

NEMO

themoabird

"Is everyone agreed that they don't deduct the print costs?"

That's right. Or at least, I've never seen a contract where print costs have been deducted. (Otherwise, it would be possible - theoretically at least - for the author to owe the publisher money, if the book was unsuccessful, for example.)

Carol

As I understood it the cost of producing the book is factored into the selling price.
All you need to remember is in summary: Check the contract terms.
If you are paid an advance- you will not receive royalty payments until that advance has been covered by sales. If no advance then royalties begin from the first sale.
Your % is from the actual selling price of the book, not the printed cover price unless it is sold at that price.
Keep track of your royalty payment form as you will need the info for the tax man.

midia

In short Nemo, you will probably be looking at receiving anything between 5p and 50p per copy sold, depending on the price of the book. So if they sell 5000 copies your royalties would be somewhere between £250 and £2500. You will also get additional income if your publisher sells the rights to your book to other countries. Congratulations on getting this far and you know what Dorothy always says - get on and write the next book while you're waiting! Once you have one book published, regardless of genre, you will find it much easier to get more published. Best wishes.
Debs