Article by Mary Hoffman
[Armadillo 5.1 Spring 2003]
Further to the editorial in Armadillo 4.3 (Our Freedom as Freelances"), there has been a lot in the news about discount sales of books and authors' and artists' incomes. The Bookseller (20/27 December 2002) reported on the concern felt by the Society of Authors at the treatment of its members. Where books are sold at a discount, the originator's percentage can be cut by fifth, if the publisher is giving more than a 50% discount (52% for paperback sales). Since the collapse of the Net Book Agreement, some authors are now believed to be receiving 90% of their royalties at reduced rates.
Mark Le Fanu, General Secretary of SOA, said, "The proportion of royalties coming in at the reduced rate is now at absurd proportions. It is causing surprise and irritation. We accept that where there are very high discounts, there should be a reduced royalty, but the old thresholds are no longer reasonable."
In the words of Jonathan Lloyd, President of the Association of Authors' Agents, "The problem is that higher than normal discounts arte now becoming normal." Is this going to become like criminal jail terms where the cover price (sentence) bears no relation to the royalty paid (time served)?
Lloyd also targeted "promotional costs". This is an issue taken up by agent Caroline Sheldon in the current issue of The Author (Spring 2003) in her piece "Shining Bright". "Publishers perceive," she writes, "that with smart packaging, clever marketing and a significant spend on promotion, [my italics] they can take the right book straight into the bestseller list. If there is something about the author that makes him or her promotable, the possible subject of a media story, all the better. Such books are usually bought at auction from agents and from the moment the publisher takes them on they are designated as A-list."
And who gets the promotion? Those who get the big advances, at a wild guess. In the Children's Bookseller (21 March 2003), there are reports on advances of £250,000 ® Puffin for Louisa Young's Lionboy trilogy; £100,000 ® HarperCollins for Katherine Langrish's džbut novel, Troll Fell and "a substantial six-figure sum" ® Simon and Shuster US for three books by Cherry Whytock. (The claim in the same issue that "established UK authors" can expect advances of £8,000 per fiction title may well raise a rueful smile from some Armadillo readers!)
As Katherine Roberts says in the same issue, "If a publisher pays a huge amount for a title, then it is going to spend an enormous sum marketing it, and whatever is left will have to promote everyone else on the list." Which is why the SAS took the matter into its own hands (see "news and events" on page two).