Today the Authors Guild wrote to individual members referring to letters that some authors have received from Random House and HarperCollins about eBook rights. According to the Guild, the publishers hope “to lock in e-book royalty rates at 25 percent of net receipts.”
In the letter, the Guild has offered five tips to writers about eBook royalties. We’ve included the entire letter after the jump–the advice raises some fascinating questions for all writers. Here’s an excerpt: “[A]lthough some letters [from Random House and HarperCollins] suggest that the author’s work was ‘selected’ for digitization, appear to be going to virtually all authors who have no stated e-book royalty rate in their contracts. In some cases, the letters have gone to authors who have never granted e-book rights to the publisher. These amendments should be treated with extreme care.”
Random House spokesperson Stuart Applebaum had this response: “It is Random House, Inc. standard business procedure to have an agreed-upon royalty rate with our authors and their representatives for the formats in which we publish them.”
Read the whole letter after the jump. What do you think? We’ve contacted both publishers with a request for comment, and we will include all responses in a future post.