By Erin L. Cox, Publisher | @erinlcox
In recent years, the publishing industry has seen an increase in reported stories of publishers or literary agencies which have not paid authors and illustrators their royalties, leaving creators with little recourse but to take legal action.It is easy to see how these situations occur, even to the most well-meaning publishers – royalty statements themselves are not uniform from publisher to publisher; these statements can often be complex to decipher, particularly to a layperson; are issued infrequently, often 2-3 times a year; and because publishers handle hundreds or thousands of royalty statements at a time, they may miss a small mistake that an author themselves would notice.
Because of how difficult these statements are to read and how infrequently they are sent, most authors don’t look that closely if the rough royalty figure seems correct. If an author does take the time to delve into their royalty statement and go line by line, the problem may be months or even years old before they notice it due to the infrequency of these reports. By the time it is realized, time has passed and finding accurate information to back up an author’s argument can be difficult.
Today, the industry may be relying more and more on technology to improve publishing systems and workflow, but the opacity around royalties, which has been a long-standing source of friction between publishers and the creators they work with, remains. Sometimes, even when the royalty report is accurate, the lack of visibility on real-time information can create unnecessary suspicion or tension between publishers and the authors they work with.
In May, Publishing Perspectives published a piece which highlighted why improving these systems managing contracts, rights, and royalties is important internally for publishers, but it is with external partners – authors, license holders, agents, publishing partners – that being transparent becomes even more essential. Not only for this initial rights sale, but to build a trusted relationship for future business.
Since its founding in 1977, Ingenta has worked with publishing partners to develop rights management tools that can navigate both simple rights management and more sophisticated licensing opportunities. Their product Ingenta Aperture has grown from those relationships with publishers, distributors, and asset owners and with the changing face of rights management in today’s world.
Aperture is a self-service portal created to share rights and royalty data securely and on demand. The portal, which can operate on the web, tablet, or mobile device, can be configured to a publisher’s workflow and seamlessly integrated into any existing in-house system.
Most importantly, the portal can share whatever information that publisher seeks to provide their authors. For example, the view can show book sales by format, royalties by geographical location, and payment history.
For authors and publishers, the portal provides a controlled, individual view of their sales, streaming, royalty, and payment data, at any time. As the in-house systems are updated with information about sales and right deals, so too is Aperture. So, there is never a time lag where an author is waiting for information from the publisher.
Over the last two years, publishers have begun exploring new and complex licensing deals for their authors as a way to engage with this changing marketplace for content and rights. Some of these deals include licensing works to train LLMs, microdeals, and multi-territory and multi-format rights. As new opportunities arise, it is important that the rights holders trust these publishers and know that they have their best interest in mind.
By not taking this step to build that trust, publishers may risk not being able to take advantage of these new time-sensitive deals, while also jeopardizing competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Authors are looking to publishers to navigate through this new world of AI licensing and, the more information they can get, the more they will be willing to participate.
For those publishers who are already using Aperture, they have noted that it has given them a distinct competitive advantage when courting new creators. There is also an increased efficiency in the royalty reporting process, a reduction in the number of queries from authors about their royalty statements, and generally, and improvement in customer service.
While Aperture can connect with virtually any external data source or existing in-house system, for publishers looking for a single-tailored view across processes, it can also be integrated with other Ingenta products:
- Ingenta Folio – A contract management system which helps publishers track rights, sales, permissions, payments, and communications.
- Ingenta Edify – A content delivery system that helps publishers with user discovery.
Rights holders increasingly expect the same visibility over their income that they get from online banking, money-management, and more. By publishers providing full transparency of rights income, they are able to address the human side of rights and royalty management, and ingrain security and trust with those creators without whom they would not have any rights to sell.