[Publisher] Ravenous Romance

From what I understand, ebook royalties are typically on cover price. So 38% of a book priced at $9.99 that sells 1000 copies... 0.38 x 9.99 x 1000 = $3796.20. If spread between 20, $189.81 each.

Mind you, some epubs offer royalties on net. Which can be interpreted to mean profit (I mean really, anything from editing and cover art costs to their long distance bill and buying staples can be included when calculating 'net') but it typically means cover price, less any distribution costs, from places like Fictionwise.

Definitely something to ask any epub.

jennontheisland said:

From what I understand, ebook royalties are typically on cover price. So 38% of a book priced at $9.99 that sells 1000 copies... 0.38 x 9.99 x 1000 = $3796.20. If spread between 20, $189.81 each.

Mind you, some epubs offer royalties on net. Which can be interpreted to mean profit (I mean really, anything from editing and cover art costs to their long distance bill and buying staples can be included when calculating 'net') but it typically means cover price, less any distribution costs, from places like Fictionwise.

Definitely something to ask any epub.

Click to expand...

Thank you very much! Sounds like it would be not a totally bad deal if it were for a novel, i.e. one author, but in either case the amounts are based on the presumed sale of ALL 1,000 copies. And they could take years to sell or not sell at all. The advantage for an eBook publisher, should a book not sell at all, is that there is no unsold stock for them to unload as remainders. Unlike print, they have not spent the $ to produce 1,000 copies.

Is it typical that these terms are not clearly explained upfront -- what they actually represent? I've had contracts (print) where everything was spelled out to the letter. Is that the standard: you don't really find out until you're at the contractual stage? I would think this is something very basic and should be transparently presented at get-go.

Also, and I know this is a very general question, but if this were a print deal involving a 300-page novel, and 1,000 books were printed, all of which sold, wouldn't you probably be making more than $300 + $3796.20, assuming the royalty percentage was the same 38%? Seems like a novel would sell for at least 4 figures, if not a good deal more.

Letterhead said:

Is it typical that these terms are not clearly explained upfront -- what they actually represent? I've had contracts (print) where everything was spelled out to the letter. Is that the standard: you don't really find out until you're at the contractual stage? I would think this is something very basic and should be transparently presented at get-go.

Click to expand...

It is somewhat typical of a new epublisher to not offer everything included in their contracts as info for the general public. And of course the lack of informaiton, or the ambiguity (real or percieved) causes red flags to rise. It's one of the stumbling blocks almost every new epub hits. Once the epubs been around for a while, and have made any necessary tweaks to the contract terms, the info will make its way out. Keep in mind too, that most epubs will negotiate some contract terms, so what you see as publicly available information won't always be what you end up with once you're done.

Letterhead said:

Also, and I know this is a very general question, but if this were a print deal involving a 300-page novel, and 1,000 books were printed, all of which sold, wouldn't you probably be making more than $300 + $3796.20, assuming the royalty percentage was the same 38%? Seems like a novel would sell for at least 4 figures, if not a good deal more.

Click to expand...

Totally different business model. Traditional print pubs will not give you a 38% royalty. More like 3-10% depending on who it is and how good your agent is.

jennontheisland said:

It is somewhat typical of a new epublisher to not offer everything included in their contracts as info for the general public. And of course the lack of informaiton, or the ambiguity (real or percieved) causes red flags to rise. It's one of the stumbling blocks almost every new epub hits. Once the epubs been around for a while, and have made any necessary tweaks to the contract terms, the info will make its way out. Keep in mind too, that most epubs will negotiate some contract terms, so what you see as publicly available information won't always be what you end up with once you're done.

Click to expand...

Right. It's good to hear about negotiation, but again, no way to know whether they will or won't and what the specifics are until you're sucked in. I would love to hear that people (authors) are making proper money from eBook sales. Perhaps they are.

jennontheisland said:

Totally different business model. Traditional print pubs will not give you a 38% royalty. More like 3-10% depending on who it is and how good your agent is.

Click to expand...

Yes, and you're likely to get a large(r) sum upfront.

Thank you again, Jenn, for answering my eBook Publishing 101 questions.

Letterhead said:

Right. It's good to hear about negotiation, but again, no way to know whether they will or won't and what the specifics are until you're sucked in. I would love to hear that people (authors) are making proper money from eBook sales. Perhaps they are.

Click to expand...

Emily Veinglory tracks ebook sales numbers at her site. She focuses on erotica and erotic romance publishers, but it's the best indicator out there at the moment, IMO.

http://www.erecsite.com/index.html

Letterhead said:

Thank you again, Jenn, for answering my eBook Publishing 101 questions.

Click to expand...

You're welcome. Keep in mind though that I'm unpublished, and hardly an expert. Others with more experience may have other answers. Keep asking!

Letterhead said:

Let's base our example on sales of 1,000 books, a sales figure I understand to be very unusual in the eBook world. I am told very few eBooks sell 1,000 copies.

Click to expand...

I think I'd qualify that as "Very few ebooks published by brand new epublishers sell a thousand copies." It's not unusual for books at some pubs to sell that in the first month alone. I'm a complete unknown, my first book released with Ellora's Cave this year and it sold more than that in its first month. So I'd say that's probably pretty common for an established pub like EC as far as sales, considering I certainly didn't have any name recognition or backlist or anything to help garner any sales.

I've heard some books with other pubs do as well, though not necessarily in their first month. Loose ID and Samhain both have very respectable sales numbers and I highly doubt it's rare for their books to sell more than a thousand copies over the course of the contract. But then, Samhain, EC and Loose ID all have one thing in common...they're established, they have loyal readers and they have proven themselves to be trustworthy companies with an established and reliable author base.

I'd say it was very ambitious for a brand new epub to assume sales of those numbers for a good while, let alone out of the gate. But Ravenous isn't backing off those numbers of 'multiple thousands of every title", so time will tell if they really have discovered the magic formula to break epublishing sales through that glass window. I admit to being very curious...and skeptical. I wish them and their authors luck, though, really.

Fae

jennontheisland said:

Traditional print pubs will not give you a 38% royalty. More like 3-10% depending on who it is and how good your agent is.

Click to expand...

In the US, the standard royalties for large commercial houses start at 10% for hardcover; trade paperback royalties are usually 7.5% and up; mass-market paperback royalties average are all over the map, but the rule of thumb is that they average 6%. And there are usually incremental increases as the books surpass certain sales targets.

Also, remember that an advance is shorthand for "advance against royalties," so the amount received is not "advance PLUS royalties," but "royalties, to the extent they exceed the advance."

In other words, if $1,000 in royalties are earned based on sales, but an advance of $100 was paid before publication, then the royalty payment would be $900.

JD

What Fae said. 1,000 copies in the first month isn't unusual at EC (it's not guaranteed, but it's not uncommon) and I know sales are pretty good at places like Samhain, LSB, and Loose-Id, but I also know new houses that did splashy ad campaigns that are still not hitting mid-two- or three-digit sales numbers after a year or two in operation.

Doesn't mean Ravenous will be here with two-digit sales in a year; also doesn't mean Ravenous will have EC's sales out of the gate.

Several of my books at Loose Id have done over 1000 copies, and two have done over 1500 copies. Not in the first month, and not all of them, but it's not all that rare when you look at the top tier of the existing erotic romance epublishers.

And my short stories published through Loose Id have generally paid me better (and some cases a *lot* better) than my short stories published in anthologies at places like Constable & Robinson and Haworth.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

I received word from Lori that my short story has been accepted for the Sex and Shoes anthology. The contract is in the mail. I'll let you know how it works out.

Has anyone out there contracted a novel with Ravenous yet? I've been offered a contract for a novel and I have a few questions for someone whose been through the process with them already. Thanks.

--Em

This is...interesting. I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year and it seems one of Ravenous's interns is cold emailing (aka spamming) Wrimo's.

They put this post up on the NaNo boards: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3103085

And I also got an email from this person on the NaNo site who must have clicked my sig banner there and seen that i write for EC:

"Hi gang,

I don't know what Ellora's Cave pays for novels or short stories, but there is a new erotic ebook publisher that goes live on Dec. 1 - just after WriMo! Here's their info:

Ravenous Romance, a new online ebook and audiobook publisher of erotic romance, is acquiring 365 novels and 365 short stories per year, in all categories. We are looking for great writing and compelling stories from both previously-published and new writers. We’ve signed novels from many award-winning writers and their protegees, and have aggressive plans to market their work online as well as sell print and translation rights. Our novels are 50,000-60,000 words, and our short stories are 1,500-5,000 words. Visit www.ravenousromance.com to download our submission guidelines.

So...check it out and let me know if you think you may submit to them. They are buying stories and novels now!

Thanks,

Brattyhack"

Sounds to me like they're targeting EC authors? The 'Hi gang" indicates that message wasn't just sent to me and it specifically mentioned EC.

*shrugs* Weird.

Edited to add: I've confirmed at least two other EC authors on the NaNo boards received the same email from the RR intern. Take that for what you will.

A couple of authors in my promo group have been getting spam from Ravenous as well, this time regarding some sort of text-speak romance contest they're doing. Not sure if they're doing NaNo as well.

Dear Author addressed the spamming by RR too.

I wasn't aware of this. It's distressing. I was solicited through email, only because I had already been contracted with a short story. I pitched an idea for a novel, and they offered a contract based on the partial.

Due to personal circumstances, I might ask for an extension on delivery of the manuscript. I dunno. We'll see.

I'm probably going to become a villain now (yay! One more life goal fulfilled!) but I posted links to Dear Author's page and this one over on their NaNo post in case this doesn't pan out well.

Ben, you nefarious so-and-so....

I'm dying here! This is so embarrassing (or should be) to everyone involved. It's like FanLib 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I'm feeling left out...

Well, they're not the first pub to try something like this in order to get submissions. Sure doesn't make them look like a good prospect to me.

Funny. They went from originally claiming they only accepted agented submissions from "certain select agents" to spamming NaNoers daily.

They also claimed they had a huge media blitz planned for the month of October with author interviews and news outlets and grand unveilings, etc. I don't recall seeing anything of that nature; perhaps I wasn't looking in the right places, though. I am in the UK after all, so it's possible I just missed it.

The audiobooks are a clever idea, though, assuming they don't make people uncomfortable.

365 novels and 365 stories a year???? That sounds great from a reader's perspective, but for the publisher, it must be making for an insane acquisitions process--not to mention getting all those novels and stories edited and ready for release. You'd think they'd give themselves longer to launch.

No offense to anyone who has been contracted by Ravenous, but with a need to acquire that volume of material, it does make me wonder how high they can afford to set the quality bar.

- Victoria