PublishersLunch
Random House announced changes to the
contract terms for their start-up digital imprints Hydra, Alibi, Flirt, and
Loveswept on Tuesday morning, following pointed criticism from the Science
Fiction Writers of America, the Horror Writers of America and other author
group representatives. The company is adjusting the charges made under their
profit-sharing contract model, and also offering authors a separate, more
traditional advance-plus-royalty contract model.
The advance-plus-royalty model follows a
traditional contract model: Random House's "standard ebook royalty
of 25 percent of net receipts" along with an agreed-upon advance, with the
imprints covering all production, shipping, and marketing costs. In the revised
profit-share model, there are fewer charges to the author's share. In
particular, the percentage-based
fees for publishing services have been eliminated, as have
the "out of pocket title set up costs" for ebooks, producing
more of a true profit-share.
Now the imprints will cover entirely
"all marketing costs connected with general, category- or imprint-wide
marketing programs" and title-specific marketing plans up to $10,000. Any
costs above $10,000 "will be proposed in advance to the author. If the
author agrees, the incremental costs of such title-specific marketing
activities over $10,000 will be deducted from sales revenue before profits are
split." For print books, "actual costs directly attributable to
production and shipping of the book" will be deducted from net sales.
Under both models, Hydra, Alibi, Loveswept,
and Flirt will still acquire rights for the term of copyright, but there will
now be an out-of-print clause where authors can "request reversion of his
or her rights three years after publication if the title fails to sell 300
copies in the 12 months immediately preceding the request." The imprints
will generally seek to acquire world rights in all languages, with earnings
from subsidiary rights split between the imprint and the author subject to the
business model the author chooses. Random House added that "If we see
opportunities with select manuscripts for performance or transformative digital
editions (such as video games), we will seek to acquire additional rights,
subject to negotiation with the author."
Writer Beware's Victoria Strauss, one of
the initial critics of the original contracts, said
the changes "represent a significant improvement" and that she was
impressed with Random House's "openness to discussion, and with what
seemed to me like a sincere commitment to responding to criticism and making
the digital imprints' contracts more author-friendly."
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