Yup, it’s that happy time of year where I get paid royalties on my books. It’s not a huge amount, but it’s still lovely. What I did see however was the appearance of E-book sales on my statement, which is nice and interesting to see the figures for.
Clearly, the market’s got a way to go before it works itself out – the sales are only a handful and not enough to justify keeping a book in print (fortunately the paperback edition sold a butt-load more) but I’ll just highlight one detail of it. Money received £4 (after VAT, since E-books are taxed unlike others, so the cover price must be £5 on average. Royalty paid on that – a standard 25% net, so £1 per book – comparable to a hardback sale and more than double what I’d get for an average paperback. If the figures stay the same as E-books replace a large portion of paperback sales, that could easily see a 25% increase in royalty income – doubly interesting when the paper and freight etc of physical books (according to an article just written by the CEO of Bloomsbury) accounts for only 15% of the cover price.