Your royalties: The devil is in the details

Are you confused trying to determine how your royalty statement matches your publishing agreement? Do you feel like your royalty check is less than expected? According to Juli Saitz, CPA, Senior Managing Director, Ankura Consulting Group during her recent webinar, “the devil is in the details”.

To better understand how your royalties should be calculated, there are several items you may want to look for in your contract – beyond the basic royalty figures – including clauses on: electronic derivatives, subsidiary rights, custom work, packages, and tiering.

Just two weeks left to register early and save!

Early registration for TAA’s June Conference ends April 15. All rates increase by $50 after that date. Join us in Old City, Philadelphia, June 14-15 and prepare to be inspired!

TAA’s conference program features three writing tracks:

Academic Writing Track: Learn tips on how to plan your writing projects for maximum productivity; create writing that is clearer, better organized, and more compelling; revise at the macro and micro levels with efficiency; safeguard your scholarship; get started with conducting and writing systematic reviews; use qualitative coding to enrich data analysis; collaborate more effectively; and more.

Cengage announces launch of new ‘Author Relations Team’

Cengage announces the launch of its new three-member “Author Relations” team, which will be responsible for working with its higher education authors on their business-specific needs and questions related to contracts and royalties.

According to a post on their blog that answered questions posed by TAA last fall, “The AR team will take lead on working with authors regarding royalties across the board. Each author will have an AR rep that they can call directly with questions of that nature.”

Can I help you in any way? Publishing strategies (part 2)

“Hello, thank you for visiting. Can I help you in any way?” If you’ve browsed our TAA website, you’ve likely seen those words in the chat box that appears on the screen. We’re often asked by visitors if we’re “real”. Then those who realize that we are, and that we are there to help, ask questions that you may have as well.

In this series of “Can I help you in any way?” posts, we’re highlighting some of the questions people have asked through the TAA Live Chat feature of our site and the responses we have for those questions.

In the first post on questions about publishing strategies, we focused specifically on the process of finding a publisher and submitting a book proposal. In this second post on the subject, we’ll explore other related questions receive through the chat.

Cengage denies trampling authors’ rights, claims Cengage Unlimited will increase author royalties

In its response to a class action lawsuit filed against them in May by David Knox and Caroline Schacht, Cengage denies that its business model “tramples on” or is in any way inconsistent with its authors’ rights and believes that the new Cengage Unlimited model will “increase sales and revenues (and, accordingly, royalties to authors).”

Cengage authors Knox and Schacht filed their class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 14 against Cengage claiming the company’s emphasis on digital distribution, including its new Cengage Unlimited model and expanded digital courseware offerings, have violated their publishing agreements. The suit also claims that the company is refusing to provide information that would allow them to audit their royalty payments.