Most royalty rates increase according to the number of units sold. Amazons kindle ebook royalty rate explained for selfpublished authors have you ever wondered why amazon pays authors and book publishers 35% on some ebooks and 70% on others. Also, traditional publishers will often offer different royalty rates, advances and other terms depending on the author, the book, their platform and other factors. A publisher pays authors royalties in exchange for the rights to publish their work in book form. This article looks at the financial implications of including images in your ebook, and i show you how to calculate the breakeven point between using the 70% and 35% royalty rates to compensate for kdp file size charges. The ebook list price must be at least 20% below the price for the physical edition of the same book. Now our first detailed analysis tackles todays inadequate ebook royalties. You will, at all times, ensure that the ebook list price.
In cases where you have an established blockbuster author who writes a novel with a co author, that co author is typically paid a salary for hisher work on the project. Niche authors hit by amazons ebook royalty rates the. Book royalty rates on selfpublishing platforms are typically standard and consistent for all authors, and will typically only vary depending on the type of book ex. Hardcover or trade books are paid on a slightly higher scale. I could do something with this idea and i set out to determine what a fair ebook royalty rate. Delivery costs for large ebook files can reduce royalties quite significantly.
There are several rules and exceptions to getting the 70% royalty so you might need to take these into consideration when deciding how to price your book. Royalty rates are percentages of book sales and they are entirely negotiable, though some publishers have standard royalty rates or standard royalty ranges that they try to stick to for the majority of their book deals. Checking in on the digital royalty debate publishers weekly. Sony do not allow indie authors to publish directly. How selfpublished authors get paid for ebook sales tck.
Theres a lot involved in determining royalties including whether youve given exclusive distribution rights to the publisher. The industry standard, twuc contends, is far too low and does not in any way reflect a fair partnership between authors and publishers on ebooks. An author with a traditional publisher will receive royalties on each hard copy of the book sold to libraries or a percentage of the ebook sold at a library rate. Amazon is the only ebook retailer that charges publishers a fee to deliver their ebooks to buyers. Book publishers pay authors and illustrators in various different ways. Clearly, the sweet spot for everyone is a royalty rate for ebooks between 25% and 50%. The guild analysis traces the history of the ebook royalty rate, and points to the watershed moment in 2004 when random house, which had been paying 50% of ebook revenue to authors. Amazons kindle ebook royalty rate explained for self. Your ebook royalty is the money you make from selling ebooks and usually works out to be a percentage of the retail price. What publishing companies pay the highest royalties to. You dont get paid unless people actually read your book. We announced our fair contract initiative earlier this summer. While lulu takes a selling fee from authors profits up to 20% in some casesbookbaby doesnt take a penny, meaning more profit for our authors. Royalty rates for licensing intellectual property includes critical information on financial theory, rules of thumb, industry guidelines, litigation based royalty rates, and tables of actual rates from real deals for different industries.
The ebook royalty rate under the new agency pricing is not favorable to authors. Kobo pays a royalty of either 70% or 45% depending upon the ebook s list price and currency. Keep twucs royalty math in mind when you receive your next book contract. Author says ebooks will hurt authors because of royalty rates. Heres a hypothetical example for a general market not cba hardcover, firsttime author. This royalty percentage is something to keep in mind when you price your ebook.
However, sales in most of the englishspeaking countries pay the higher royalty. January 4, 2019 4 comments on which amazon kdp ebook royalty rate should i choose. Which amazon kdp ebook royalty rate should i choose. Amazon delivery charges reduce your kindle ebook royalties. When kindle unlimited was first formed, it offered royalties to authors as long as book borrowers read 10% of the text. To keep things as simple as possible, we assumed that for hardcovers. Royalties paid out by traditional publishers usually vary from writer to writer. Understanding your royalty rates a royalty is the money thats left for the author after a book is sold and any retailer and production costs have been subtracted from the retail price. This pricing page changed on the date listed above. Royalty rates for ebooks are higher than print books, and can range from 25 to 50. Half of net proceeds is the fair royalty rate for ebooks.
Is no greater than the ebooks list price at any other retailer, website or sales channel. It came of age when jacket design, publicity, typesetting and. The 2020 guide to amazon fees and royalties for kindle. The key piece of this press release was the model that a 15% royalty rate on hardbacks was fair, with fair being defined as a 5050 split between the author and the publisher. How publishers like us pay authors and illustrators for.
You can choose between two royalty options for each of your digital books, the 35% royalty option and the 70% royalty option, described below. But the way publishers play the game is to take only authors who are willing to do this. If you choose this royalty option for your digital book, it will apply to sales of your digital book to customers in any territory. Agents and authors often raised the issue, complaining that the standing rate. Book royalty rates are typically calculated as a percentage of the gross or net revenue for each book sold. A few years ago, the topic of the digital royalty rate came up at nearly every publishing conference. So a typical royalty schedule for a first time author with a mainstream publisher might be. Heres a breakdown of some of the average book publishing royalty rates from traditional publishers and how they match up against tck publishings royalty rates.
With a traditional publisher and unfortunately most. Audio books have expanded their reach as people more and more listen to books on their phones, tablets and other electronic devices. However good the main home sales royalty is, a disadvantageous high discount clause can mean that disappointingly few of the sales attract the full royalty and. The 35% royalty rate times the digital books list price exclusive of vat. The contract should set out each type of sale and list the appropriate royalty rate. Your royalty on sales to customers outside the available sales territories will be as provided under the 35% royalty option i. But here is the way that we with a tiny handful of exceptions pay for books and its pretty standard for publishers who publish books for the general public, regardless of their size. We agree to pay an author illustrator an advance against royalties. Nowadays particular attention needs to be paid to high discount clauses in contracts. You can choose between two royalty options for each of your ebooks. But that 15% royalty rate has long been the norm for printpublishing contracts. Royalty rates for print books vary from contract to contract. We have negotiated the best ebook royalty rates for authors selling through websites like amazon, where the bulk of selfpublished author income comes from.