[batmaniam]

Most author's don't even make money from their books. Publishers take a massive chunk out of any profits they make, leaving them with barely anything.

So even if you buy the book, the author isn't really getting that much, they're probably still starving. The truth is it's the publishers that's not getting paid, and that's why all these lawsuits are happening. The political power one needs to even get someone extradited alone implies it's not just random authors banding together to sue, it's powerful rich publishers, someone with political connections. And prosecutors are going all out it seems, piling on BS charges of money laundering??

I hope the zadmins win. Maybe the ACLU can get in on this to drop the case, but they generally only take open-shut cases in their favor sadly.

[ianburrell]

That is not how publishing works. Publisher produces the book, sells to book stores, and pays royalties to the author out of their portion. The author gets 10-15% for every book sold. The whole point of going traditional publishing route is to put the risk of producing the book on the publisher. Self-published authors get bigger cut, but have to pay for editing and promotion.

There are advances where publishers give money to the author before the book is even completed. The royalties first pay off the advance before author gets royalty checks. Most authors never pay off the advance, but they don't have to pay it back.

[autoexec]

Looks like many authors don't get more than 5% for paperbacks, and at times authors might have to fight to get paid what they're owed.

https://authorsguild.org/news/authors-guild-files-suit-again...

https://bookriot.com/disney-must-pay-task-force/

https://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2021/04/authors-accu...

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/author-loses-fight-for-unpaid-...

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/authors-sues-two-predat...

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/cengage-faces-fresh-lawsu...

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/p...

https://writerbeware.blog/2022/08/26/complaints-and-changes-...

The music industry has a similar problem where artists often have to resort to courts to see money that they're owed.

[jasonfarnon]

Maybe for books, but for scientific journals, the sort of stuff on sci-hub, authors get nothing. And of course they rely on volunteers for technical review. All publishers bring to the table is branding/reputation.

[kragen]

the author in theory gets royalties for every book sold (though usually not that high), but almost all books do get an advance, and as you point out, the royalties are so small that almost no books ever 'earn out' of the advance. so almost no authors actually get royalties for every book sold. they do get the copyright, though

[iczero]

I have an extremely hard time believing that editing and whatnot means that it's reasonable for the author to only get 15% of each sale. This is especially the case for ebooks where the marginal cost of each copy is practically zero.