When I was at Wiley, the authors of a popular science book I edited asked about an $80 royalty payment whose source they couldn't figure out from their royalty report. It had something to do with the ebook, but it wasn't from ebook sales. So I called royalties, and they had no idea either and did some investigating. Turns out, the royalties came came from rentals of the book on Amazon, students we presumed using it to write papers. The $80 had been put into the best possible category.
So the problem, fundamentally, was not the royalty department, but the fact that Wiley's royalty system, just like St. Martins, was from at best the 1980s and allowed for limited detail and inputs. Also its only gave results in the format used on dot matrix printers! At Wiley I actually got a huge printout of my backlist titles ever year to flip through and look for trends and books with upticks in backlist sales; at SMP I got a PDF (2000 pages!). Of course these reports wasn't searchable or malleable because they didn't output to a spreadsheet. There has to be better software today that publishers could use, but what publishing executive is going to approved a capital expense running into the millions and causing untold difficulties in its installation, implementation and training when they might not be around to enjoy it?
My romances went out at 200,000 and I had a 95% plus sale through rate, but my other books? Wow. Enlightening. Now a days, though doesn't Amazon account for the majority? I think I read book stores are less than 12 percent?
Other than having to deal with the increasingly erratic behavior of the then-senior editor of Gold Eagle, an ongoing and never-resolved issue regarding royalties soured my 15 year-long relationship with Harlequin.
I love and learn from your intelligent and humorous "Inside Agenting".
Gratefully,
Carola
Thank you always, Carola
When I was at Wiley, the authors of a popular science book I edited asked about an $80 royalty payment whose source they couldn't figure out from their royalty report. It had something to do with the ebook, but it wasn't from ebook sales. So I called royalties, and they had no idea either and did some investigating. Turns out, the royalties came came from rentals of the book on Amazon, students we presumed using it to write papers. The $80 had been put into the best possible category.
So the problem, fundamentally, was not the royalty department, but the fact that Wiley's royalty system, just like St. Martins, was from at best the 1980s and allowed for limited detail and inputs. Also its only gave results in the format used on dot matrix printers! At Wiley I actually got a huge printout of my backlist titles ever year to flip through and look for trends and books with upticks in backlist sales; at SMP I got a PDF (2000 pages!). Of course these reports wasn't searchable or malleable because they didn't output to a spreadsheet. There has to be better software today that publishers could use, but what publishing executive is going to approved a capital expense running into the millions and causing untold difficulties in its installation, implementation and training when they might not be around to enjoy it?
I'll be addressing this very problem in an upcoming posting.
My romances went out at 200,000 and I had a 95% plus sale through rate, but my other books? Wow. Enlightening. Now a days, though doesn't Amazon account for the majority? I think I read book stores are less than 12 percent?
Your post was dead-on.
Other than having to deal with the increasingly erratic behavior of the then-senior editor of Gold Eagle, an ongoing and never-resolved issue regarding royalties soured my 15 year-long relationship with Harlequin.
Doesn't your agent insist on accuracy? It's their money too