"Until recently, typical author-publisher contracts entitled authors to 5-15 percent of revenues for 'sales' of print books and 50 percent of revenues for 'licensing' of other subsidiary rights, including electronic uses or e-books.
"As revenues from e-book licensing have begun to surpass print book sales, publishers have been pressuring authors to agree to contract amendments reducing e-book royalties from 50 percent to a new norm, unilaterally imposed by publishers, of 25 percent of net proceeds. Most publishers' current contracts limit e-book royalties to 25 percent of net."
Most interesting: publishers are telling libraries that they're licensing ebooks to libraries, not selling them. But they're telling writers that they're selling them, not licensing.
I'll repeat what I've written before: libraries and authors are natural allies. And we'd be willing to give them 90% of a sale. If the authors are on our side, just what will the publishers be selling?
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