What's the cut% for e-books w/ a publisher?

philipmichael said:

I know self-publishing an e-book is about 70% through Kindle and Ibook, but what about e-book sales through a publisher? If it's the same as a for paper, (~15%?) that seems like and awfully big drop, considering there's probably a lot less work involved for a publisher w/ an e-book.

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Publisher contracts vary, and I daresay some folks with those kinds of contracts will provide some examples.

But why do you think there's a lot less work involved? E-books still have to be edited, copyedited, and proofread; a cover needs to be designed; the interior needs to be designed; the output must be tested on multiple devices in multipe formats.

The only 'work' that e-books don't require is physical storage and shipping, but those tasks are replaced with e-distribution (including maintaining an e-store) and server maintenance.

All of these tasks cost money.

philipmichael said:

I know self-publishing an e-book is about 70% through Kindle and Ibook, but what about e-book sales through a publisher? If it's the same as a for paper, (~15%?) that seems like and awfully big drop, considering there's probably a lot less work involved for a publisher w/ an e-book.

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It took my novel 1 year to get published, from acceptance to release date. There were two separate editors working on it. An art department created the cover. If a publisher is doing their job (e or print) there's going to be a lot of work involved. Doesn't matter what the final format is.

I think it would be fair to say that a rough standard with e is 40% for the author. It varies, of course, but I'm guesstimating the average.

Don't go with e-publisher that can have your novel on the market in a week. That would be a bad sign.

Generally, IME, they sell ebooks for less than paperbooks but give the author a higher percentage (often around 40%).

So, paper book may be sold for £10 and you will get £1 (assuming 10%, lets make this easy) for every book sold.

Same book as an Ebook will be sold for £5 and you might get £2 from that.

Main difference between self and epub in terms of money is that a good publisher should be marketing your book to increase sales (as well as making it more saleable by editing and doing good cover design etc). So, in theory, you can get more despite the lower percent profit. So, in the above example:

Ebook self published (sold for £5) with 70% cut, author gets £3.50, sells 100 copies making total profit £350

Ebook published (sold for £5) with 40% cut, author gets £2 per copy, sells 200 copies for a profit of £400.

This is assuming that the publisher can market your book enough to get sales but from what I have seen most are better at it than a single author working alone.

A publisher also puts a stamp on on the book that says "Someone besides the author' Mum thinks this book is okay."

Royalties on my ebooks - all through publishers - run about 35-40%, print royalties considerably less.

I wouldn't blink at anything from about 25-50%. In my case there is not drop in income, as the publisher far exceeds what i could achieve in terms of sales.

I've seen publisher royalties for eBooks range from 25% to 70%.

Terie said:

But why do you think there's a lot less work involved? E-books still have to be edited, copyedited, and proofread; a cover needs to be designed; the interior needs to be designed; the output must be tested on multiple devices in multipe formats.

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Question. Does an author get a different percent depending on what format--hard, trade, or mass market--the book is in? Or depending on if it is audio vs. print?

If there is a different percent involved, is it partly because of the different retail price involved? If so, then there should be different percentages involved with an ebook vs. any print if the publisher is doing both.

Also, I assume if it is a company doing both print and ebooks, then there are certain costs spread across both versions of the book--that is, all editing/proofing is going to be the same whether it is ebook or print. Cover should be the same. So the only additional costs should be related to the actual making and posting for sale of the book.

Jodi

Anything above 50% will tend to be in net receipts not cover price, which is a whole different ball game.

And yes, the percent of cover will vary with format and point of sale because that is how the profit varies, and the publisher and author are generally splitting the profit in some fashion. For example, of the royalty is 50% for an ebook, well an off site sales might mean the etailer takes 50% of the cash, so that would leave the publisher giving away the total income from the sale and running at a loss. Therefore ebook royalties via distributors are often halved.