Nigel Roby, The Bookseller in conversation with Brian Murray, CEO of HarperCollins at the Frankfurt Book Fair
On E-book Royalty Rates:
“Ten years ago we settled on an e-book royalty rate of 25% of net receipts and haven’t diverged from that. When we looked at our print royalties, we saw they averaged about 16-18%, so we knew we could afford to pay a higher royalty rate. So that was almost a 40% increase in the royalty rate. There is a lot we can do to give readers additional value, such as enhanced e-books. Because they sell for a higher price, that is, in turn, going to raise the pay for authors.”
On Print vs. Digital:
“We want to see half of our revenue from print going through high street stores. We believe bricks and mortar stores, internet stores, e-books and physical books can all complement each other. For example, we just made our titles available on the Espresso Book Machine. That goes toward an initiative that we’d like to see in the high street stores. Having a complete catalog of HarperCollins titles available is one way we are working to help [booksellers] find a sustainable model.”
One Comment
Once a publisher has completed the work necessary for a print book, there is almost no additional cost associated with producing the eBook. There are no printing costs, no distribution costs, no incentive payments to brick-and-mortars, and no costs for returns. Authors don’t object to a 15% royalty on print books because of the costs I mentioned above, but why should Harper Collins, or any publisher, expect to keep 75% of ‘free’ money? If you’re going to allocate a portion of the cost of preparing the print editions with the eBooks, then you should be paying a higher percentage for the print editions.