eBook Royalty Comparison

[elizabethmccoy]

I suspect this will be an ongoing project, comparing the royalties offered by various ebook publishers/distributors.

Amazon.com (Kindle): 35% (prices below 2.99) or 70% (2.99-9.99). Subtract at least a penny for delivery fees, and probably around 10 cents.
http://forums.kindledirectpublishing.com/kdpforums/entry.jspa?externalID=453
http://forums.kindledirectpublishing.com/kdpforums/entry.jspa?externalID=377&categoryID=32
[Have heard from MCA Hogarth that Kindle pays promptly and apparently accurately. They do not, however, yet have a master-page for a book where "all copies sold to date" reside, and all their data is by-book, rather than for all books by the author.]

NOTE! Purchases which are not from one of Amazon's dozen or so "approved" countries will use the 35% royalty, even if you picked 70%!

Barnes & Noble (PubIt!): 40% (prices below 2.99) or 65% (2.99-9.99).
http://pubit.barnesandnoble.com/pubit_app/bn?t=support

Bookbrewer: Charges minimum $39.99, sends to ebook stores (iBooks, etc.), and takes a 25% cut of what you get from them (40%-45%, depending). You get no ePub file for your own. "Advanced" package does not submit to ebookstores, but does give you the ePub file.
Amazon.com via Bookbrewer: 40%-45% (2.99-9.99)
Apple iBooks via Bookbrewer: 40%-45% (2.99-9.99)
Barnes & Noble via Bookbrewer: 40%-45% (2.99-9.99)
Borders via Bookbrewer: 40%-45% (2.99-9.99)
Google Editions via Bookbrewer: 40%-45% (2.99-9.99)
Kobo via Bookbrewer: 40%-45% (2.99-9.99)
http://bookbrewer.com/content/author-agreement-basic-publishing-package
http://bookbrewer.com/content/borders-choose-bookbrewer-power-its-ebook-self-publishing-service
http://bookbrewer.zendesk.com/entries/382682-what-s-the-difference-between-the-two-packages
http://bookbrewer.zendesk.com/entries/306701-how-do-the-book-royalties-break-down

DriveThruFiction.com: "Exclusive publishers receive a 70% royalty on all digital sales and 70% royalty on the margin (sales price - print cost) on all print sales. They also receive more free promotion on the marketplace.
Non-exclusive publishers receive a 65% royalty rate."
http://www.drivethrufiction.com/join.php

eBookMall.com: 50%. Minimum price $2.98. Has $19.95 listing fee.
http://publishing.ebookmall.com/information/distributionagreement.htm
http://publishing.ebookmall.com/ebook-sales/guidelines.htm

eBooks.com: only deals with publishers.
http://www.ebooks.com/information/authors.asp

Fictionwise: "40%, with some subvendor caveats"
[Bujold, on the Bujold mailing list. F'wise only takes previously-published authors and wants/wanted exclusive ebook rights. Fictionwise is also stated to pay on-time and quarterly.]

Google: Varies, though "the majority" goes to the publisher (or presumably self-publisher) when selling a book. They also show "relevant ads" alongside the sample pages, and "a majority" of any click-through revenue is "shared" with the publisher/self-publisher. It is a little unclear if Google always offers to sell the book itself, or if it only links to an author's own buy-this-book web page and/or a third party distributor (such as B&N or Amazon). Generating false click-throughs on the ads, or giving people incentives to visit the page and click the links, can result in Google ditching the book.
http://books.google.com/support/partner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1187465
http://books.google.com/support/partner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=106167
http://books.google.com/support/partner/bin/answer.py?answer=18625

Kobobooks: "a competitive vendor commission based upon your suggested retail price"
http://kobobooks.com/companyinfo/authorsnpublishers.html

Lulu.com: 80%? (hard to figure out without actually publishing a book); may have a 99c fee.
"Your commission from retail sales is 80% after the retailer takes their share (30%). So, you get 80% of 70% of the Price of your book."
Apple via Lulu: 56%
http://connect.lulu.com/t5/Publishing-Process/How-to-Publish-an-eBook/ta-p/33458?cid=us_ebk_faq3
http://www.lulu.com/apple-ipad-publishing

All Romance/Omnilit ( http://www.omnilit.com )
60% of the price (or discounted sale price).
http://www.omnilit.com/publisherRegistration.html

Smashwords.com: 85% of net. Subtract PayPal transaction fee, spread across entire purchase.
    Apple via Smashwords: 60%.
    Diesel via Smashwords: 60%
    Barnes & Noble via Smashwords: 60%.
    Kobobooks via Smashwords: 60% (.99-12.99) in US & Canada. 38% elsewhere.
     Sony via Smashwords: 60%.
http://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords
http://www.smashwords.com/dashboard/channelManager

XinXii (European company): 40% (.99-2.48), 70% (2.49+). German VAT (19%) will adjust this. You must click to get paid, and the minimum transfer to PayPal is ~$27USD/EUR 20.00
XinXii can distrubute to Apple, giving 50% "for works with a price greater than $0.99 / £0.99"
http://www.xinxii.com/gd_cms.php/en?page=revenues_en
http://www.xinxii.com/faq.php/en



Potentially helpful sites:
http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/ebook-sellers.html