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 follows 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. To see or change them, you need administrator access.

The chain, in order

A sale earns money when all five of these are true:

  1. The contract covers the title. Coverage rows decide which titles 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 set the limits.
  4. A sales report supplies the money. Pubblish takes the figures from the report you upload. It does not take them from anything typed on the contract.
  5. The rate takes a share. The percentage sets how much of the sale goes to the payee. The payee is the person the contract names to be paid.

If any one is false, the sale earns nothing for anybody. The rest of this guide covers each one.

Coverage decides which titles

Set a rate’s Title box to Everything the contract covers. The rate then pays on every title the contract’s coverage names. If you tick Every title on a coverage row, that includes titles you add later.

A rate that names one title is a per-title exception. It applies to that title only. It overrides the whole-contract rate for that title. The rest of the catalog stays on the general rate. You can only name a title the contract already covers.

Direction must be inward

Pubblish never pays a rate on a contract set to Rights we grant. Royalty runs read inward contracts only. An outward contract means you grant a right away.

The contract page shows Rates on an outward contract are never paid above the rates. If you see it, the direction is probably wrong.

Dates bound it

Both date boxes on a rate are optional. If you leave one blank, the contract’s own dates apply. A rate with no dates runs as long as its contract does. It stops when the contract ends.

Pubblish pays each sale at the rate that was running on the day of that sale. Suppose you change the percentage from today. January’s sales are still paid at January’s figure. See Recording an author contract for how the split works.

Within one contract, Pubblish refuses two rates when all three are the same:

  • the payee
  • the title
  • overlapping dates

The form says so. A whole-contract rate and a per-title exception do not count as the same title. Pubblish allows that pair, because the exception is meant to override the general rate.

Across two contracts, Pubblish refuses nothing. Say two inward contracts both pay the same payee for the same title on the same day. Both rates save, and Pubblish uses one for each sale. The winner is picked in this order:

  1. A rate that names the title beats a contract’s general rate.
  2. After that, the later start date wins.

Check the payee’s contracts before you add a second one for a title they already earn on.

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

The sales report supplies the money

Pubblish does not guess what a sale was worth.

  1. Open Royalties in the sidebar.
  2. Click New period.
  3. On the period’s page, click Upload a report.
  4. Add the report files you download from each channel. They carry the units and the money.
  5. Click Calculate royalties.

Pubblish then does three things for each sales line. It matches the line to one of your editions. It finds the rate in force on the sale’s date. It works out the share.

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

The rate takes the share

A rate holds two percentages. 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. Pubblish does not use reported revenue for print.

Leave one blank when there is no royalty of that kind. At least one must 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. They mean different things.

Titles with no royalty rate is the serious one. No inward contract sets a rate that covers these titles. At calculation time, Pubblish sets their sales aside. Nobody earns anything from them. Click the Put this right link to open Contracts. There, add a coverage row or a rate.

This count leaves out titles that are withdrawn or still drafts. They have no future sales to earn anything.

Titles with no rate running today is less urgent. It is not a mistake. A rate exists, but it is not running today. Either the contract ended, or a new one has not started yet. Pubblish still pays in full for sales made while the rate was running. The line names the date, so you can see which case applies.

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