Royalties

Jeff PetersJeff Peters Posts: 36
edited January 2019 in Type Business
Without mentioning any particular distributors/resellers, what would you consider a minimal acceptable royalty for normal reselling, for syncing and for pageviews per month?

Comments

  • notdefnotdef Posts: 168
    I made a rough estimate of 2–4% of the gross monthly income from Creative Cloud distributed back to type designers in royalty fees as a fair reflection of the value added and hours invested. I have no idea what that figure actually is. Since type designers need the tools to produce the fonts, the least they can do is offer a free CC plan.
  • notdefnotdef Posts: 168
    Sorry, plain English: I pay ~ €60 per month for my Adobe CC plan. I think 2–4% of that should go to type designer royalties.
  • This reminds me of the time Epic Games decided the 70/30 split from Steam was unfair to developers and created its own store with a 88/12 revenue split: https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/4/18125498/epic-games-store-details-revenue-split-launch-date

    Having said that, I believe 70% is acceptable for what you call normal reselling. No idea about syncing and pageviews, though.
  • notdefnotdef Posts: 168
    edited January 2019
    the fonts are a value add to it 

    Of course, and I think that value added is 2–4%. If I were to consider only my side of the equation, that number would be much higher. I’m guessing Adobe’s number is much lower.
  • Guys, I'm still new to the font business, but it seems to me that low deductions are acceptable when they are offset by the number of sales. It is better to get 100 sales and get 40-50%, than one sale and 70% of deductions. I am guided by the logic of microstock. What do you think about it?
  • To me, the question is whether any given channel provides enough added value to justify using them, compared to the alternative(s).

    I see this much like @JoyceKetterer.

    I do not choose to primarily analyze it by whether some channel is “doing enough to justify their cut.” I think that is treating it as a moral choice, in which you want to punish those who are in essence undeserving in terms of them not doing enough. Although I don’t have a problem with taking ethical positions in business, but I don’t weight that particular question very much at all, compared to whether it makes business sense for me or my company.
  • Thanks for your insight, all.
  • I'm willing to lower my expectations for royalties if they're accompanied by appropriate effort/money towards promotion.
    Indeed. I collected some analytics and was surprised how selectively Monotype is promoting our fonts. Now I am confused and don't quite understand such a high commission, because selling fonts without promotion is doomed to invisibility. I see much more sense in building my own promotion channels for the future.
  • Nick CurtisNick Curtis Posts: 118
    Developing a good e-commerce website in the first place, then time and money spent on promotion are the only expenses in my retail business model.
    Well, I'm 73 and, despite all my protestations at age 21 that I would never become un-hip, I have managed to do so. Consequently, it make sense for me to hire a twenty-something brand manager to flog my wares in "all the right places."

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