>>I spent six years writing Wall Street and made <$10,000
>
>That's really pathetic. Is the book business as bad as the music business?
>
>How much did it make for Verso?
About $300,000, I think. Nice rate of surplus value extraction, eh?
I signed the contract in 1990, when Verso was entirely based in London (no New York office, aside from a desk at their distributor, which was Routledge in those days). I was so happy to get a book contract I didn't care about the terms, but the terms really sucked. The royalty rate was low, 8.5% of the cover price (vs a standard 10% or higher even) - but even worse, that rate applied only in the "home market," which was defined as the UK. The US was part of the "export market," and royalties on those sales were computed on the wholesale price, not the cover price, effectively halving the royalty rate. So, almost all the sales - 20,000-25,000 copies, never got a rigorous accounting - were computed as exports.
Verso has published some absolutely wonderful stuff over the last 30 years, and many wonderful people have worked there (and still do). But, well...I'll stop there.
Doug