Richard Curtis

The result is the emergence of a system for producing literature that might best be likened to dairy farming, with authors forced into the role of domesticated cattle resignedly allowing themselves to be milked to satisfy the thirst of a mass market.

authors have not been the beneficiaries of profits created by that efficiency.

higher percentage than ever before is being returned, and, of course, no royalty is paid on returned books.

Higher return patterns also cause publishers to fix reserves against returns at higher figures, meaning lower and slower royalties.

many authors are waking to discover disappointing, if not shocking, royalty statements even though their books shipped in large quantities.

In fact, their royalty statements are disappointing because their books shipped in large quantities!

In practice, however, authors lose out because most publishing contracts call for the same slashes in royalties today that existed ten or twenty years ago, before deep discounting became commonplace.

For instance, your paperback royalty may, by contract, go from 8 percent to 4 percent if your publisher sells your book at a discount higher than 50 percent

Late in 1985, three authors brought suit against Addison-Wesley, claiming that the publisher's interpretation of the discount clause had resulted in the loss of more than $100,000 in royalties.

Although the authors were supposed to get a royalty of 15 percent of the list price per copy, the contract called for a drop in royalty to 10 percent of the publisher's net receipts for copies sold at half the list price or less.