Pulp Fiction · Legacy archive
cost and profit splitting
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cost and profit splitting
#1Cost splitting is simple. We could have two options:
a: on head count- equally b/w authors whose stories are chosen for one issue
b: on story count- equally by number of stories published in one issue i.e works the same as option a if each author only publishes one story in each issue but if you have two stories in one issue then you shoulder double the share as under option a
Profit splitting is a bit more vague. I like the idea from Val that profit is split by level of contribution but I'm confused over how we want to split b/w authors and production team. I have 2 different idea on how we could go too:
The production team charges a fixed fee. Then the remaining profit is split on basis of story count in each issue to the authors.
We could have the production team getting a fixed percentage of the profits and the remaining split on basis of story count in each issue to the authors.
Now what I have no idea about is a reasonable fixed fee or profit percentage for the production team to charge. -
Re: cost and profit splitting
#2The typical means for compensating authors on magazines, compilations is based on wordcount, not number of stories. If the stories are kept to roughly the same size this will look like option b.
It does mean if someone where to crack out a novella then they would get a proportionally larger chunk of the take.
Here is one take from the Canadian Writers Union - they have mention for ebooks
http://www.writersunion.ca/twucs-royalty-math
Essentially, they recommend a 50% royalty, which based on how much work is involved in proofreading, copy editing, layout and art, seems fair to me. The industry standard, based on this link is 25%/75% author/publisher which seems out of whack.
Thoughts?
Scras - how did the group you were seeing work this out?
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Re: cost and profit splitting
#3Okay, so Fan's point in the splitting page has brought this to the fore for me at least.
Money is going to be a non-trivial part of this. Especially since as Fan says, the book could potentially generate returns for a long period of time, and the funds would need to redistributed for as long as well.
First Step - the pub as a whole needs an Author/Owner - they will be the individual who receives any proceeds from the sale, and will be responsible to redistribute any royalties. For now I'll refer to it as Citadel Publishing, but this is a placeholder - I think it is taken.
The following is Completely Up For Discussion and is only my first crack to put some bones on the idea. All is up for discussion. I am not a lawyer.
When submitting to commercial Citadel Publishing submissions, you as an author can choose either
1. Standard Royalties. You are responsible for maintaining communications with Citadel Publishing and providing a proper channel for any remuneration. Royalties will be distributed quarterly if the amount exceeds $X. Paypal will be the selected means to provide funds.
2. Ceding Royalties to Stolen.com. You choose to cede any potential revenues and assign their receipt to Strolen.com for the maintenance and operation of that site.
Rights:
Authors retain copyright of their works, though you grant unlimited license specific to this epub. Citadel Publishing may not reuse this content in future publications unless an agreement is arranged with the author.
Citadel Publishing requires no exclusivity on publications.
Sale Price refers the Net amount received from a distribution channel
Production Costs refers to any funds paid to outside parties, etc, as part of the publishing of this epub. Most likely this will be Artwork with flat fee arrangements.
Net Return is Sale Price - Production Costs
50% of the Net Return will be distributed among the production team based on contribution. This will be tricky, and might be based on time.
50% of the Net Return will be distributed to authors as a royalty, based on ratio of published word count.
Note the highlight on Published word count. Copy editing is likely to leave words on the floor, and those won't count towards the take. Fair? :)
Artwork
Given we do not have a track record yet, I expect any artists to charge a flat rate. If royalties are acceptable, then we would need to come up with a formula for this. I would think it would be based on how much page space it used and price it at double the word-count used for the same space?
Again, NONE of this is set in stone. Comments welcome.
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Re: cost and profit splitting
#4 -
Re: cost and profit splitting
#5From the peanut gallery:
Traditionally it is based on word count but I don't think that it will work in this case. We should establish an expected word count and try and stay at or under that. Not that anybody would, but the siren call of word count may create verbose material which leads to....
Editors. Since, at least at the beginning, we will be editing each other's work, then we don't need the added stress and responsibility of cutting/trimming another's submission when the payout is based on word count. Sort of a conflict which *could* result in issues down the road.
Additionally, we are far from professional editors and we will be editing each other's work. So I think editors shouldn't get such a big chunk until they have proven themselves as value added. Otherwise you could have 15 editors reading it with feedback of limited value or 3 editors that do a bulk of the accepted and appreciated edits. So allowing editors in to even join the cost share should be looked at carefully.
Because we are community and doing things for fun and profit and I think the payout should be based on
1) Amount of stories contributed within an established word count or no word count. 50% divided by number of stories.
2) Editor contributions as voted by the authors. Which is another difficult one as mentioned. 25% divided among top editors as acknowledged by authors - "readers" with little contribution should get a thank you, but it takes work to edit and they will have to be identified by the authors as major contributors. If we were professional this might be worth paying more, but we are just trying to help each other.
3) Community pot to be used for artists/donations etc 25% Art will eat up a bunch of our small change and many, if not all, will usually ask for a one-time cost for it. Generally it is frowned upon to ask a creative to "Gimmie art and we will give you a cut of profits" as the profits are long way coming. Established income, yes. Us now, bad etiquette. Could be used for more art, donate to the Citadel as mentioned, bonus to an author that did some badass stuff and we just think they earned a bonus, bonus for somebody doing awesome editing, software, etc. Whatever. A pot of money that allows us to grow what we are doing and provide bonuses and incentives to others. Of course, this would be a vote by all earners. As Milo Minderbinder says, everybody that contributes gets a share in the syndicate.
Citadel Publishing is available in NJ ;)
I do have the stack of Jack Holliday art that I purchased and he pretty much gave me free reign to do with it as we wish (as long as it won't impact him negatively so I would shoot him a note if we decide to use it...but he knew about the ebooks already), to include cropping and dissecting to create different images. We might be able to piece that together depending on the stories and make it work for the first few books. -
Re: cost and profit splitting
#6Re word count, at first Scras said 5000-8000 but then Axle was operating on 2000-10000 but yes, I think we do have a set word count to operate on. So I think I will go with what Strolen suggests of using story count as the basis for both cost and profit sharing.
I think art costs should be kept to just one-off fees cos like Strolen said, not many artists want to be having royalty rather than hard cash unless we're using in-house artists but we aren't. And having Jack Holiday's arts to use might mean zero cost to arts for the first couple of commercial ebooks so the only remaining issue of discussion is really the profit sharing aspect.
The 50/50 split of profits b/w authors and production team for ebooks seems fair split to me. However, like Strolen, I'm still not 100% sure abt % to editors. What Strolen suggested of top editors voted by authors is a sensible approach in a broad sketch way but there're still more meta-level issues that are not unresolved such as:
- how do we set the standard for separating what is just vague helpful feedback that doesn't make it to the level of editing or what does? is this sth voted by the author itself or set by the Citadel/writer group as a whole? if this is sth voted on by the author him/herself, then how do we deal with each person being a different person and having different expectations?
- what happens if all editors are mediocre in their jobs but all put in immense amt of time into it? what should be the right level of compensation in that case? (this might be jumping too far ahead cos so far only I've volunteered myself as the proof-reader/helpful writing pal but I don't know, I somehow thought if someone really put immense time into the editing task, then maybe we could give a bonus to the person as a show of appreciation separate from the quality but then one might argue that it's not the right incentive to give)
Prob. many other issues floating around but I've blurted everything that I could think of, for now.
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Re: cost and profit splitting
#7- how do we set the standard for separating what is just vague helpful feedback that doesn't make it to the level of editing or what does? is this sth voted by the author itself or set by the Citadel/writer group as a whole? if this is sth voted on by the author him/herself, then how do we deal with each person being a different person and having different expectations?
This seems easy for me. An editor is someone given the task of editing. Feedback from anyone else is encouraged, but that isn't editing. For the time being, every author should probably ask/designate one of the others in the group to be the editor for their story.
- what happens if all editors are mediocre in their jobs but all put in immense amt of time into it? what should be the right level of compensation in that case? (this might be jumping too far ahead cos so far only I've volunteered myself as the proof-reader/helpful writing pal but I don't know, I somehow thought if someone really put immense time into the editing task, then maybe we could give a bonus to the person as a show of appreciation separate from the quality but then one might argue that it's not the right incentive to give)
I think this is the same issue as anyone putting in a mediocre job on their part of the project. I'm not sure I have a solution, but my gut says it will be a self-solving problem. The better editors/authors/whatever will rise to the top and the issues that have more higher quality material will bring in more return to those involved.