Eagles Over the Kennebec

It's funny/frustrating how people often have the misconception that royalties equal riches. As someone who studied music business, I can tell you how surprised I was when I first read about artists and songwriters and their respective recording and publishing agreements. On one hand, there was the huge recording industry up through 1995 or so, before the advent of Napster and home recording and "indie" musicians, and the wild successes of people like Motley Crue, Britney Spears, and Madonna; on the other hand, you had the "lesser" recording artists, and now, you have the post-Napster digital music world in which most publishing agreements do not include any advance on royalties whatsoever, and in which record deals are for the overnight hitmakers and often provide no more than a $25,000 recording advance, as opposed to some of the million-dollar advances the superstars used to see. From what you've detailed, it seems that the (book) publishing industry has undergone much the same transformation, but was probably more competitive for authors than the music industry ever was for artists.

I very much appreciate this breakdown, if only for the sake of enlightening others. Kudos on a very clear explanation. :-)