Should Book Authors Pursue a Patronage Model?

blarkon writes "With ebook prices falling and some readers even unwilling to pay more than 99 cents for an ebook, some authors are starting to consider a move back to the patronage model that was successful in providing them with a living before the widespread use of copyright. Might such a model work or are the days where a midlist author can make a living off their work a relic of the 20th century?"

Comments

Re:1 million downloads @ 99c is still 990,000 doll

[ZombieBraintrust]

There are 7 billion people in the world and growing. About a half billion speak English. Literacy is at its highest in history. The patronage system existed at a time when there was less than a billion people. When the closest thing to a global language was Latin. A time when most people couldn't read or write. Also with the print publishing system authors were already making only a few dollars per sale. (Most went to publisher and retail stores.) The economics of writing is still good. Some would say its the start of a golden age for writers.

Re:Cultural Tyranny -- Advance Payments

[Daniel Dvorkin]

What many people don't realize is what is called an "advance" is not a payment to the author in advance of future sales of a book, it is a loan against future sales of a book. And often it is a loan at a fairly high percentage rate. Most publishing houses only run (e.g. "print") a book for about three years. If the sales for a given book haven't been as good as projected, it is entirely possible for the author to actually owe the publisher money at the end of the run.

Where did you get this idea? Neither I nor any writer I know has ever signed a contract that specified repayment on a portion of the advance. If the book doesn't "earn out," the publisher writes off the remaining portion of the advance as a loss, and that's it. Maybe it works this way in some publishing niches, I don't know, but it's by no means standard. Such awful terms are common in the music industry, I understand, but not in publishing.