E-book question for writers

[alanajoli]

So, there's been news lately about Wiley Agency starting an Amazon only imprint for their writers. It's sort of a weird deal -- a literary agency acting as a publisher and giving exclusivity to a single seller -- and it's much debated (which I won't get into here). It has got me thinking, though: in theory, writer royalties are supposed to be larger in e-books. (That's another thing being batted around the news lately.) If that's true, it would make sense for me to exclusively buy e-books instead of mass markets, as they're priced very similarly, and on e-books, my money would go more directly to the writer.

So, writer friends:

1) Are your royalties better on e-book?
2) Does my math make sense?

Twostripe has looked at my to be read pile, which I've now divided into three as part of the baby-proofing efforts at the house (it's far less likely to topple now). When I talk about buying a new book from my release list, he makes a funny gurgling noise that isn't at all a sound of approval. He suggested, however, that I look into saving us shelf space by buying digital, so I'm headed that direction. (I picked up Nalini Singh's newest, Bonds of Justice, when Kobo Books was having a sale the other day.)

This messes up my "I like all of my books to look the same on the shelf" strategy -- I'm compelled to buy matching book sets, which is why I have all the Percy Jackson books in hardcover, and why I at one point had three different incomplete sets of the Harry Potter series, since I picked up paperbacks of several of the books in England over two or three trips. On the up side for the blog, slimming down my print collection could mean a lot of fun prizes and contests coming up here.

Comments

[dmoonfire.livejournal.com]

For my book, I do about half as ebook and half as print. Admittedly, that is a very small sample but I'm pretty happy with it. For me, I lean more toward ebooks just because of the shelf space problem (I still haven't freed all my books from boxes since the last move, only had 5 shelving units).

I avoid hardcovers personally (too much space), but I like to get books of a series. I hate cliff hangers, so I just want to read the entire series end-to-end. :)

I think the last eight books I bought were ebooks, and once I get a proper reader, I'll probably get a lot more.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Royalties are definitely larger if one markets one's own ebooks . . . but this particular type of book production is still in its infancy.

[bccreations.livejournal.com]

Royalties are derived from net price, so:

$30 hardcover x 15% royalty rate = $4.50

$10 ebook x 25% royalty rate = $2.50

The higher royalty (25% being the current standard at the big 6) does not offset the lower price point.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

But if my choice is $7.99 for a mass market at, say, 15%, vs. $7.99 for an e-book at the 25% rate? That's really the distinction I'm looking at. Hardcovers are probably always going to net more.

[eyezofwolf.livejournal.com]

I can tell you that from the self-publishing perspective (I self-published my second novel - I don't know if you knew that), I receive a much greater profit. However, I believe I still receive the same "percentage". I don't know for sure, but it might just be that there is more profit, and so the writer makes more money. Just throwing it out there as an idea because let's face it - the overhead for creating a digital copy is extremely low.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I didn't! I bought your first one as a gift (and read it first before giving it away -- I think I told you that at the time), so I may have to buy the digital versions of both. :)