QUESTION
What is the industry average payment to an author of a text book? Is it usually a percentage of the sales price?
Asked on Aug 23rd, 2014 on Intellectual Property - Hawaii
More details to this question:
We are starting a school and are buying a curriculum from the author for a flat fee. We are also buying her text book by giving her a percentage of the purchase price (to be determinded) . She also wants a royalty in the form of a percentage of our gross income for her intellectual property rights pertaining to the book. Is this normal? I know all things are up for negotiation but I need to have an idea of where to start and what might be fair to both her and us. Thank you in advance
1 ANSWER
Intellectual Property Attorney serving Manchester, NH
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Hayes Soloway P.C.
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Hi Ken,
If you are buying the curriculum and you are buying the book, I'm not clear on what other IP rights might be possessed by the author that you are purchasing. If I were to teach a class at our local law school, I could assign a text book and the students would need to buy it. The author's revenue would come entirely from the purchase of the text book.
If you are starting a school, you have other classes. I would make arrangements to buy books for those other classes and see if those books are purchased without the extra fee for "IP rights". All knowledge comes from experience.
Good luck,
Todd
Answered on Sep 09th, 2014 at 1:12 PM