Chapter 56: The Exquisitely Charming Senior Woman
Random House.
Editor-in-Chief's Office.
"Four percent royalty?"
Adam frowned. "Mr. Seff, as far as I know, the usual royalty rate for novels is six to fourteen percent. Even if I'm a newcomer, it shouldn't be below six percent, right?
"Besides, you've read Lord of the Mysteries. I'd say its quality far surpasses that of an ordinary newcomer's work. Otherwise, you wouldn't be interested in it. What do you mean by offering four percent?"
"Six percent for a newcomer?"
Jack Seff cursed inwardly. He hated newcomers who came prepared after doing their research. They were hard to fool. Still, he was an old fox, and his expression remained perfectly composed.
"Who told you that? Impossible! What newcomer gets a six-percent royalty right off the bat? Newcomers have no name recognition. Their distribution depends entirely on the publisher's channels.
"In that situation, all the risk falls on the publisher. Do you know how high the cost of building and maintaining distribution channels is?
"Of course, if you have absolute confidence in your book and think you can achieve huge success without a publisher's resources, then self-publish. In that case, you really can get a higher royalty."
"..."
The corner of Adam's mouth twitched. He was left speechless. What a familiar and powerful line of logic.
When an author wrote a book and a publisher distributed it, whose role was more important?
Both sides had their arguments.
Naturally, authors believed the quality of the book mattered most. Readers came for the book, after all. Without authors painstakingly typing away and writing books, could publishers have risen in the first place?
Now that publishers had made it, they could comfortably take their cut and make money, yet they still weren't satisfied? They wanted even more?
They were