Publishing: Royalty Comparison?

It probably varies depending on the contract involved, but most hardcover (and the majority of trade paperback) royalties that I have seen listed on the web are:

10% of retail for the first 10,000
12.5% for the next 5,000
15% thereafter

That is what I've found listed most often on the web. If anyone has any firsthand accounts that would dispute those figures, those would obviously take precedent.

travNastee said:

It probably varies depending on the contract involved, but most hardcover (and the majority of trade paperback) royalties that I have seen listed on the web are:

10% of retail for the first 10,000
12.5% for the next 5,000
15% thereafter

That is what I've found listed most often on the web. If anyone has any firsthand accounts that would dispute those figures, those would obviously take precedent.

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My contract says:
Trade Paperback:

10% up to 3000 copies sold
12-and-half to 6000 copies
15 % thereafter


Mass Market Paperback:
6 and a half up 20000 copies sold
10% thereafter

Edited to add:
That is on Cover Price.

don't forget, however - you may get a higher royalty payment but YOU have to do more of the work, especially with a self-pub book. That extra cash may be going right back out in the way of advertising and so forth since it's all on your shoulders.

good luck!

And 15% of cover price can be more than 20% of net. When you multiply that by the number of copies sold....

Jack said:

I'm currently working on a non-fiction book and was considering just self publishing it at iUniverse since they have a 20% royalty payout on sales. [...] I know the traditional route is a lot better because they can keep printing costs down and the overall book price reasonable, but what are the royalties like in comparison to POD publishing?

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Jack, I think that you may be using confused terminology. If what you're doing is actually self-publishing, you are paying out the setup costs (printing, cover design, and so on) and you take all profits from sale of the book, because the copies belong to you (making your royalty rate 100%). What you're describing with iUniverse is vanity publishing--you're paying setup costs, but iUniverse owns the copies and sends you a percentage of the profits. In either case, you have to weigh your royalties against the setup costs, figure out how many more copies you'd have to sell at the higher royalty rate to offset the initial costs, and figure out if your book will sell enough copies to make a profit.

Jack said:

I'm currently working on a non-fiction book and was considering just self publishing it at iUniverse since they have a 20% royalty payout on sales.

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A couple of things to consider here.

- iUniverse (and other POD self-publishing services) pay royalties on net sales--i.e., the money the service actually receives for the book. Online vendors like Amazon expect a substantial discount. So your royalties are likely to be based on less than half the cover price. That can work out to less than a 10% royalty from a commercial publisher, since commercial publishers pay royalties based on gross sales (the book's cover price).

- Even if royalties from self-pub services were paid on gross, it wouldn't be more lucrative for you, since self-publishing companies don't provide authors with any marketing or distribution support. Self-pubbed books rarely get reviewed in major review venues, and rarely make it onto bookstore shelves. The average book from a service like iUniverse sells just over 100 copies. Compare that with thousands of copies for the average commercially-published book.

There are sometimes good reasons for authors to choose a self-publishing service, but better royalties isn't one of them.

- Victoria

Victoria, can you explain to me what makes iUniverse self-publishing instead of vanity? I thought it was a vanity setup.

iUniverse is vanity. A straight-on pay-to-play POD vanity.

I covered the difference between royalties on net versus royalties on cover price last year on my blawg, and I even did all the math.

Aconite said:

Victoria, can you explain to me what makes iUniverse self-publishing instead of vanity? I thought it was a vanity setup.

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It is vanity. As is any pay-to-publish setup that the author doesn't put together him/herself. But I get so many questions from so many kinds of people that I try to use non-inflammatory terminology whenever I can. It's just habit. I always try to say "POD self-pub services" so it'll be clear what I'm talking about.

- Victoria