Traditionally Published Authors and Royalties

The post on Kristine Kathryn Rusch's site is here.

Having never been traditionally published, it's only very recently that what a mess royalty statements truly are.  It seems that authors knew their royalties would be off a bit here and there (if they could make sense of those statements).

Except now, it seems the royalties could be way, way off.


I tweeted the post I first mentioned above when I came across it a few days ago.  This is serious shit; who wants to be gypped like that?  Ms. Rusch has taken the position that it's because publishers have antiquated accounting systems that are trying to be shoehorned into the new ebook paradigm; others may not be so kind.

Her follow up post is here.

Whether or not you like the trad publishers, you have to think about the writers.  All they've provided publishers are "loan outs" of their stories, and said publishers have done pretty well.  As self pubbed writers or wannbe writers, I think the best thing is to stick together on this, no matter what your emotions on the subject.

If this can happen to writers who are traditionally published, it can happen to other writers, too.  I'm not suggesting anything underhanded here; then I'd sound like my conspiracy theory crazed brother-in-law.  (If I told you some of the things he believes - really believes - you'd either roll on the floor with laughter or consider him a prime candidate for psychiatry.)

But according to Ms. Rusch, something's fishy in Denmark.  There's one publisher out there who has shown the exact same royalty for two totally different books.  The mind boggles.

Now is the time for all writers to unite.  (Hmm...could Nancy be a Communist? ;-))  Now is the time for writers to go to writers' organizations and have the publishers audited, to get down to the nitty gritty as to what's going on - so this can be fixed ASAP.