This is so very helpful (although I don't understand it all - it's just too much to absorb!) - and comes exactly when I've been hunting out anything that can help me understand this process; my first book is out on submission with my agent, so I'm looking forward to your next post, thankyou!
My career before I had my son was negotiating licensing contracts for music recordings, and it’s really interesting how much of this is very similar. Do agents negotiate full contacts or the deal memos (not sure what you call them in publishing, but the points above). In recording contracts the royalty rates were applied to ‘dealer prices’ not retail, so that’s very different too.
Oh that’s interesting!! We negotiate deal memos where most of the key terms are agreed with the editor and then the full contract with the contract team. I’m assuming dealer price is closer to net receipts?
This is fascinating to me! Yeah — once I did deal memos, it went to our lawyer for full contract (these were days of cassette, CD & vinyl). The dealer prices were ‘published price to dealer’ and it was higher than net receipts. You never wanted net receipts. But we also had ‘packaging discounts’ that some labels applied (the majors wouldn’t allow you to get rid, but I could with indies, as it’s simply another way of factoring down your royalties. Packaging discounts were often 25% off that PPD!!!). I did mainly licensing for compilations, but some singles licensing (in, for our comps and out to UK comps and further territories if we owned those rights). I bloody loved it. Still miss it.
Thank you for this generosity. Bit by bit, publishing will be made more visible for outsiders to come in (or at least understand) and for those of us on the inside too 😂
Well done for your concise summary.
My work is non fiction, and often for a flat fee rather than royalties. I described how it works in my last post (also part 1 of 2!).
https://open.substack.com/pub/felicitymartin/p/a-look-behind-the-scenes-at-walks?r=dsete&utm_medium=ios
Ooh fascinating!
Never seen this laid out so clearly before! Thank you Caro x
That makes me so happy!! x
This is so very helpful (although I don't understand it all - it's just too much to absorb!) - and comes exactly when I've been hunting out anything that can help me understand this process; my first book is out on submission with my agent, so I'm looking forward to your next post, thankyou!
I’m glad though I’m sorry it’s a lot! Do let me know if anything is unclear once you’ve digested!
So fascinating to see such a detailed breakdown. Thanks!
So glad it’s helpful!!
Super interesting and very helpful. Thank you Caro!
My pleasure!
My career before I had my son was negotiating licensing contracts for music recordings, and it’s really interesting how much of this is very similar. Do agents negotiate full contacts or the deal memos (not sure what you call them in publishing, but the points above). In recording contracts the royalty rates were applied to ‘dealer prices’ not retail, so that’s very different too.
Oh that’s interesting!! We negotiate deal memos where most of the key terms are agreed with the editor and then the full contract with the contract team. I’m assuming dealer price is closer to net receipts?
This is fascinating to me! Yeah — once I did deal memos, it went to our lawyer for full contract (these were days of cassette, CD & vinyl). The dealer prices were ‘published price to dealer’ and it was higher than net receipts. You never wanted net receipts. But we also had ‘packaging discounts’ that some labels applied (the majors wouldn’t allow you to get rid, but I could with indies, as it’s simply another way of factoring down your royalties. Packaging discounts were often 25% off that PPD!!!). I did mainly licensing for compilations, but some singles licensing (in, for our comps and out to UK comps and further territories if we owned those rights). I bloody loved it. Still miss it.
This is extremely useful and very clear. Thank you for providing this transparency on how the money works.
I'm so happy it's useful!
Thank you for this generosity. Bit by bit, publishing will be made more visible for outsiders to come in (or at least understand) and for those of us on the inside too 😂