Thursday, September 06, 2007

The future of royalties

On his blog, Richard Charkin, Chief Executive of Macmillan, argues that a new system needs to be devised for paying royalties to authors.
...the concept of royalties is a fair one but that the changes in our business have made it, in its present form (a percentage of the UK published price of a book), unwieldy and unrealistic.

The percentage is linked to a price which applies in only a minority of cases. It doesn't apply to all sales overseas; it doesn't apply to nearly all sales made in supermarkets, Internet bookshops and many bookshop chains.
Charkin argues that payments should be based on publishers' gross income rather than retail price.

He returns to the subject in another post, with a link to a radical proposal for abolishing royalties altogether (sort of).

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous6:57 am

    I am being contracted to write a series of small books for a new inovative publishing company. I have been offered 10% royalties on the sale of the books and a 10% share in the company's profits.From the 10% royalty of each book I will receive roughly 8% because the illustrator will receive the other 2%.Is this fair?
    G Ford

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