As part of their series of Fair Contract Initiative communications, the Authors Guild has a long post on “today’s inadequate e-book royalties,” asserting that “half of net proceeds is the fair royalty rate for e-books.” The post acknowledges one of the big structural obstacles to change: “Major book publishers have agreed to include ‘most favored nation’ clauses in thousands of existing contracts. These clauses require automatic adjustment or renegotiation of e-book royalties if the publisher changes its standard royalty rate, giving publishers a strong incentive to maintain the status quo.” Despite that, the Guild notes there are modest variations: “Some bestselling […]
