Google Bunkum
Here’s a new post from guest blogger, David Bolt:
Debunking the latest Google fictions …
Fiction #1. I’m going to get $60 a book.
In your dreams. Note that it’s (US)$60 per book to “the rightsholder”. How that gets split between authors and publishers remains to be determined.
And if the book is deemed “in print” (many US publishers say all their
backlist is now in print forever because they are making it available in
POD or e-book format), the $60 is paid to the publisher. It’s up to the
publisher to decide how much, if any, to pass on to the author(s),
according to the split specified in the author-publisher contract (which
of course probably didn’t provide for such a situation).
Even if authors believe that they own the electronic rights 100%, I think
the best they can hope for with most publishers is for the $60 to be
treated under the subsidiary rights clause, with a typical 50/50 split, or
US$30 per book for the authors. More likely publishers will treat the $60
under the book royalty clause, and send the authors US$6-9 per book. To
get any better split, authors will have to take publishers to arbitration
or (maybe, if they can get past the arbitration clause) to court.
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