Kindle Vs Nook Royalties for Authors
eReaders Rob Authors of Significant Royalties
While it doesn't affect most consumers, there is an interesting aspect to the Kindle and Nook that often doesn't get played in the general news. This question is when dealing with the Kindle vs Nook, how do they pay the authors who publish books? Orson Scott Card did a write-up on Amazon's policy which we have summarized below to help you understand the eReaders affront to writers.
In the pre-eReader world, authors were given around 10-15% of the cover price on their book sales. This was understandable as the publisher took a risk in printing the book, dealing with the cost of publishing, as well as the possible risk of unsold books being returned at a loss. Likewise, the retailer has to incur the cost of maintaining a store front and of setting up floor space to display the books. Thus, in the pre-eReader world, it made sense for authors to receive such a small percentage of their sales. There was a lot of risk for the other participants in the market, and it was impossible for an author to market themselves in this environment, so they didn't have any other choice.
But in the world of electronic books, it no longer makes sense to advocate this kind of distribution. The publisher doesn't have to print copies, and the retailer doesn't have to hold a store front. Nobody is incurring a significant risk and yet the royalties to the author are still just as trivial. It seems strange when the books are stored electronically, with little cost on anyones part, that the prices and payouts remain the same.
Kindle Vs Nook creates an interesting question about how royalties should be handled for digital books and Orson Scott Card does a great job talking about it, which you can read more on at http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/Articles-i-2009-04-09-193673.112113_Brown_Sugar_and_Audible_on_Kindle.html. Where do you stand on the issue? Do you think authors deserve a larger piece of the pie?
