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Post by Mini Mia on Feb 6, 2021 1:44:52 GMT -6
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Post by Phalon on Feb 7, 2021 10:16:06 GMT -6
I once read that I believe it was around 1/3 of a successful musician's income comes from merchandise. The biggest chunk of their income comes from live events; the smallest portion comes from actual recorded music (due to streaming services).
How would that translate to an author's income? I dunno. It seems to me that it'd have to be a certain type of written piece with a particular audience that would generate the kind of interest in merchandise for sales to be high enough to make a profit.
The first successful author that pops into my head who has a lot of merchandise related to her books is JK Rowling and all the Harry Potter stuff out there. I wonder though, if Harry Potter merchandise would be as abundant and popular if it weren't for the movies...and how much revenue of merchandise sales actually goes to Rowling. It would have definitely been to her advantage if, as you said, she worked out a deal that allowed her to keep merchandise rights. The Harry Potter books were wildly popular before the movies, of course, but it was the movies that generated the desire for more merchandise.
It's a good idea, but I don't see how it'd be very profitable for an average author.
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Post by Mini Mia on Feb 7, 2021 17:56:08 GMT -6
Since it’s standard for publishing contracts to have the merchandising rights as part of the contract, I’d guess it would be in the Publishing House’s favor, just as the book rights are. So, that leads me to believe that there is money to be made there, depending on the popularity of the book series and of the author. Does the Publishing House make most of the profits from movie merchandise? If so, that would be a problem to me. Publishing Houses shouldn’t get money from movies, at least, not more than the author. And I think it’s time for authors and their agents to band together and decide just what rights a Publishing House should have. They publish books, and they pay the author fairly little for it. Maybe they can get a small percentage of movie and merchandise rights, but should they get more than the author? I’d like to know more, and I’m guessing others would as well, so let’s get this discussion going. Because I know very little on the subject, having just learned that authors sign off on their merchandise rights.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 9, 2021 8:20:54 GMT -6
I guess, Joxie, you'd have to explain what kind of merchandise you're talking about. It's probably due to my reading preferences, but I'm not necessarily understanding what kind of book or author merchandise would generate a lot of revenue. Even if you look at books or authors that have made the most money, I don't see related merchandise as being very successful or having a whole lot of impact regarding sales, except for maybe children's or young adult books.
Again, it's probably just my preferences, but I'd never buy a t-shirt, hoodie, or poster of my favorite book character - it's just not something I'd have to have, wear or use.
Then again, I'm comparing it to the type of merchandise sold at concerts.
Regardless of my thoughts on how profitable book merchandise would be, I agree. Authors, and also musicians, seem to get screwed when in comes to what they make; it seems they are last in line to get paid.
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Post by Mini Mia on Jun 8, 2021 23:26:41 GMT -6
I probably wouldn't buy much merch from authors. It would depend on the merch, and on how clever it was. But there are those who would buy anything and everything. There are people sketching their versions of what the characters of their favorite books look like and selling their own merch. If random artists can do that, then the authors should be able to as well.
Authors could sell bookmarks, anything with book quotes on them, artwork of scenes from the books, paper dolls of the characters, etc.
Traditionally published authors can't even sell book quotes on merch without first getting permission from their publisher. That doesn't seem very fair.
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