Publishers Weekly is reporting that Macmillan CEO John Sargent sent a letter to agents describing “plans for the company to begin using a standardized contract for all of the company’s imprints beginning 9 November. The goal, said Sargent, is to make a it easier and more efficient to reach a deal as well as to make sure ‘our author agreements reflect current business realities.'”
Macmillan plans to acquire print and digital rights to all books they acquire, as Sargent writes “our starting premise is that digital rights in the content we publish in print book formats must be included in the basic grant of rights that we receive from authors.” He also says that, “as the methods for dissemination of content rapidly change and the distinctions between sales and licenses blur, we have determined that a single royalty rate… should apply to all exploitation of the content of the book in digital form.”
The letter doesn’t specifically details the new royalty rates, but agent Richard Curtis, who posted the complete text of the letter in this pdf file, says “The e-book royalty will come as the biggest surprise to e-book royalty watchers, as it goes contrary to the trend… among major publishers to pay 25% of net e-book receipts to authors. Unfortunately, Macmillan offers even less than that—20%.”
The New York Times quotes Authors Guild Executive Director Paul Aiken: “This is Macmillan’s attempt to pre-emptively squeeze authors,” since he believes Macmillan is anticipating a time when e-book retailers will try to cut down wholesale book prices.
A potential up-side in the new contract is that Macmillan is increasing its royalty rate on direct consumer sales from 5% to 10% for the first 10,000 copies sold and 15% thereafter. Sargent writes that Macmillan is increasing its promotional efforts “as new internet marketing techniques become available and we gain expertise in taking advantage of those opportunities.” Curtis notes that the 5% number is a holdover from “an era of mail order of hard copies, a cost-intensive process that was often generated by full color magazine ads, coupons, and other expensive forms of soliciation. This process will now yield to cheaper Web solicitations and streamlined delivery systems.”
Among Macmillan’s vast number of imprints and subsidiaries are genre publishers St. Martin’s, Macmillan Audio, and Tor/Forge.