Royalties

Here's a helpful post on the new royalty structure (pointed out by Jody Wallace). I will say that I think most of my sales are from the US. Why? Because foreign buyers are charged an extra two dollars or thereabouts, and I've seen some complain that makes my 99 cents book too expensive. So this would make my raised prices $4.99, and I doubt too many will read an indie at that price. I could be wrong, though. The new DTP has royalty rates sorted out for you, and I'll report on how my sales shake out.

The big issue here is still Smashwords. They're basically saying that if some other third party discounts your book, Amazon will discount it to that amount, too, and pay you 70% on THAT amount. Smashwords premium catalog books are distributed to quite a few vendors, many of whom discount. I can't help but feel that the big loser here is going to be Smashwords (and I also can't help but wonder if that's deliberate). Most authors aren't making much through Smashwords, and if it comes down to either/or, they're going to pick Amazon. And that's too bad, because Smashwords has been very helpful to a lot of indie authors, and they don't deserve to be... smashed.