Royalty rates and contracts

A royalty rate is a percentage on a rights contract. A royalty run adds up sales and works out what you owe. This guide covers one rate, from the contract page to the statement. It also explains why the readiness panel sometimes says a title has no rate.

Royalty rates need a plan that includes Royalties. You need administrator access to see or change them.

The chain, in order

A sale earns somebody money when five conditions are met.

  1. The contract covers the book. Coverage rows decide which books a rate covers.
  2. The direction is inward. Only contracts set to Rights granted to us ever pay.
  3. The rate is running on the day of the sale. Dates on the rate, or on the contract, bound it.
  4. A sales report supplies the money. Pubblish takes the figures from the report you upload, not from anything typed on the contract.
  5. The rate takes a share of it. The percentage decides how much of that sale goes to the payee, the person the contract names to be paid.

Break any one of the five and the sale earns nothing for anybody. The rest of this guide is those five in detail.

Coverage decides which books

Set a rate’s Title box to Everything the contract covers, and it pays on every book the contract’s coverage names. Tick Every title on a coverage row and that includes books you add later.

This is why a contract page warns These rates apply to nothing yet when it holds rates and no coverage. The rate has no coverage to apply to.

A rate that names a book instead is a per-book exception. It applies to that one book, and it overrides the whole-contract rate for it. The rest of the catalogue stays on the general rate. You can only name a book the contract already covers.

Direction must be inward

A rate on a contract set to Rights we grant is never paid. Royalty runs read inward contracts only. An outward contract is you granting a right away, not somebody paying you to publish.

The contract page says so above the rates: Rates on an outward contract are never paid. If you see that, the direction is probably wrong.

Dates bound it

Both date boxes on a rate are optional. Leave one blank, and the contract’s own dates apply. A rate with no dates at all runs for exactly as long as its contract does, and stops when the contract ends.

Each sale is paid at the rate that was running on the day of that sale. This is why editing a rate splits it rather than overwriting it. Change the percentage from today, and January’s sales are still paid at January’s figure. See Recording an author contract for how the split works.

One payee gets one rate per day for a book. Pubblish refuses two rates for the same payee, the same book and overlapping dates.

Pubblish allows two different payees on the same books. Each takes their own percentage of the same sales, which is how a co-written book is paid.

The sales report supplies the money

Pubblish does not guess what a sale was worth. Open Royalties in the sidebar and click New period. On the period’s page, click Upload a report and add the report files you download from each channel. Those files carry the units and the money.

Then click Calculate royalties. Pubblish matches each sales line to one of your editions, finds the rate in force on the sale’s date, and works out the share.

The cut recorded on a supply arrangement has no effect on this. It is a reference figure. The sales report already shows what you were paid.

The rate takes the share

Two percentages, and they work differently.

  • Ebook royalty % is a percentage of the net revenue the channel reports. Audio sales use this percentage too.
  • Print royalty % is a percentage of your own list price, multiplied by the quantity sold. Reported revenue is not used for print.

Leave one of the two blank when there is no royalty of that kind. At least one has to hold a figure.

Why the readiness panel flags a title

Click Before you calculate on the Royalties page. It lists what would go wrong if you calculated now. Two of its lines are about rates, and they mean different things.

Titles with no royalty rate is the serious one. No inward contract sets a rate that covers these books at all. Sales of them are set aside at calculation time and earn nothing for anybody. The Put this right link takes you to Contracts, where the fix is either a coverage row or a rate.

Books that are withdrawn or still drafts are left out of this count. They have no future sales to earn anything.

Titles with no rate running today is less urgent, and is not a mistake. A rate exists, but it is not running today — the contract ended, or a new one has not started yet. Sales made while the rate was running are still paid in full. The line names the date so you can see which it is.

A single title carries its own readiness check for the same thing, worded Says who is paid for this title and at what rate. It asks whether anybody has ever agreed a rate for the book. A book whose contract ran out in May already has one, so it is not asked again.