Last January we made a pinky bet guaranteeing that e-book royalties would rise above the then ceiling of 25%. Did you take that bet? Pay up, sucker!

Faster than a double-click Random House has shifted its stance on e-book royalties and opened the door to an industry-wide raise in pay for authors as predicted here. A source close to the company says it’s prepared to abandon its fiercely defended 25% net e-royalty for a sliding scale topping out at 40%.

The source of this rapidly evolving story is Rachel Deahl of Publishers Weekly whose announced yesterday that the dispute between Random and agent Andrew Wylie was settled yesterday. Whereupon, without a missing a beat, the disclosure of Random’s liberalized royalty hit the news.

Many agents have “favored-nations” arrangements with publishers entitling authors to request a new royalty rate if the rest of the book industry adopts a higher one. It is now anticipated that agents will flood Random with requests for amendments replacing recently signed ones agreeing to a 25% royalty. It will be well nigh astounding if other publishers don’t fall into lockstep with Random’s royalty or something close to it.

The big question now is, will it stop at 40%? Many observers feel it won’t, so we urge Random’s contracts team to stay close to their keyboards in case they need to compose yet another amendment. (Full disclosure: E-Reads pays 50% net royalty and has done so from our founding ten years ago.)

Below is the relevant passage from Deahl’s article, which can be read in its entirety here.

Richard Curtis

The source said Random is offering a royalty built around a sliding schedule on e-book rights for backlist titles that can approach 40% “rather quickly.” The source explained that the royalty is based on a certain number of books selling over a specified period of time and, depending on what’s negotiated, the rate will rise based on the rate of sale.

The presumption is that Random House’s improved offer on backlist digital royalties–the source said this new approach is a “good rate” and notably better than the standard 25%–will spark the other major houses to follow suit with similar offers.