In a recent article in the Telegraph by Tom Whitehead titled “Self-published authors hit by Amazon online royalties cut” he complains that “Specialist and minor authors are being damaged by Amazon’s online royalties scheme that punishes those who do not want to sell their books at knock-down prices” and “Writers who are likely to have a small readership, particularly in niche markets, are being penalised if they want to sell their books at a high price.”
Really?
Obviously, some writers can’t do math very well – or haven’t scored a book deal with a publisher lately.
Let’s look at the bottom line: with a traditional publisher, the author receives a percentage of the net profits, which means that he’s probably putting down around 15 – 20% of the sales price of any given title. That’s being generous.