Wonder if Lorraine (and/or the Dille estate) received an immediate upfront royalty/license fee for every TSR Buck Rogers book, before the books were ever published.  In such a scenario, she would still get the royalty/license fee regardless of whether anything actually sold.

Quote from: ggroy;735213Wonder if Lorraine (and/or the Dille estate) received an immediate upfront royalty/license fee for every TSR Buck Rogers book, before the books were ever published.  In such a scenario, she would still get the royalty/license fee regardless of whether anything actually sold.

They sold apparently. Exactly how much I havent a clue. I assume they were sold through TSR's Or more likely Amazing Stories book publishing branch. How she got her royalties depends on the contract. And knowing Loraine she likely had a good one.

Normally you only get royalties per book sold to a retailer or sold direct. Its how some game publishers rip off designers to suppress a design. Buy it offering a nice royalty. Then lock it away for the duration of the contract. No sales, no royalty, no pay for the designer. Probably works differently for literature though.

Quote from: RPGPundit;735212It always amazes me this wasn't somehow illegal.

She had the titles and she was moving TSR at the time away from games and towards straight up book publishing Im told. This fits her general personality and outlook. She had a literary relative, inherited that and saw herself as saving and moving forward SF writing. And AE was doing well for a while under TSR management Im told.

If shed just curbed or flat out vetoed the CCGs they might still be around. But it wouldnt likely be as a game company today if they had.

In any case they did and it did and here we are today.

Quote from: Omega;735360Normally you only get royalties per book sold to a retailer or sold direct. Its how some game publishers rip off designers to suppress a design. Buy it offering a nice royalty. Then lock it away for the duration of the contract. No sales, no royalty, no pay for the designer. Probably works differently for literature though.

In international licensing (movies, TV series, books, manga, RPGs, whatever) a licensee pays a so-called Minimum Guarantee as a non-returnable up-front payment. That sum is deducted from any royalties, so the licensee only starts paying royalties after the accumulated royalty % exceeds the downpayment.

That way a licensor gets his share regardless what a licensee does. And in some cases the MG is so high that there are never any royalty payments.

Delivery of working materials such as artwork for package design, movie files, screenplays (for translation, subtitles, and dubbing), marketing materials, etc happens only after payment of the (first rate of the) MG.