Could Googles Project Actually Help Authors Make More Money?
Moreover, from a more pragmatic perspective, in the end, Google’s project – and the other electronic developments in publishing that may have synergies with it — may also help authors like me financially. It’s insane that books cost as much as they do. It’s insane that they still appear in costly hardcover. Readers should be outraged. It’s insane that authors typically, by contract, get as royalties only about six percent of what their books bring in – just a bit more than a nickel on the dollar. Authors should be outraged. (Granted, there are also advances, but they are supposed, at least in theory, to approximate that very six percent – and are therefore deducted from royalties. Until an author “earns out” the advance because it exceeds six percent of royalties, he or she won’t see any more money from the book.) How will this situation ever change? I think it will have to be through more readable, convenient e-books, downloadable over the Internet into a fairly light iPod-like reade
