Simon & Schuster has sent out an amendment to authors which purports to add a provision setting the standard royalty rate at 15% of the catalog retail price for e-books. The Author’s Guild sent out an alert to instruct authors of three things:
members should discuss the amendment with their attorney or agent; warns that, depending on a member’s particular contract with S&S, the amendment may grant S&S rights that otherwise would be retained by the author; and notes that members should be aware that the amendment may affect their ability to obtain a reversion of rights.
15% is fairly low given the high margins of profit for the publisher. Standard e industry royalties range from 35%-45%. Simon & Schuster has tried before to gain advantages above and beyond the standard contract and were not totally successful.
Via Publishers Weekly.
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