Charlotte’s Comments (group member since Aug 05, 2009)

Charlotte’s comments from the Q&A with Rowena Cherry group.

Actually, the more visible e-publishers charge anywhere from $5 to $8 for an e-book. 30% of that is easy to figure but it's more than $1.00.
Among my seven books at Cerridwen Press, the highest sells for $7.99 and the lowest at $5.95. At Ellora's Cave, I have 38 books and the selling price ranges from $5.99 to $7.99 (anthology royalties are split equally among the authors and is the lowest paying. That usually winds up being less than $1.00). At New Concepts, my 34 books are priced from $3.99 to $6.99. Books at Fictionwise will pay you the least royalty (about .52) but you usually sell so many it makes up the difference.

Even so, no e-book author is getting rich on royalties. The average newbie author with one e-book makes much less than $500 a YEAR. Most mid-list print authors make less than $10,000. Anyone who thinks authors are buying Lincolns and living in $500,000 homes should get a reality check. If all an author has is one or two e-books out there, hasn't built up name recognition yet, and is having the bulk of his or her work stolen by pirates, chances are he or she is barely keeping their heads above water.