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Message: <blockquote data-quote="afstanton" data-source="post: 1149899" data-attributes="member: 10492">You know, it strikes me that a lot of this debate is based on the assumption that the author in question is being paid a flat fee per word.  That's not always the case - some authors are paid a royalty, some are paid an advance on a royalty, some get both flat fee plus royalty, and on and on and on.I don't think it's as simple as the situation being presented.  It certainly could be possible to set up a fee schedule that both guarantees the author some minimum payment (placing some responsibility on the publisher to recover that investment in the work the author has done) and a percentage of sales (giving the author incentive to do some quality work).  If the publisher is planning on pdf publications with the option of hardcopy later, they could set the flat fee pretty low.Heck, if you really wanted to complicate matters, you could treat it much the same way as artwork frequently is done, where the publisher is buying first rights to something - pay a low fee for the right to release an electronic version with the option to pay a higher fee for hardcopy rights.Any combination of these tools can be used.  It just takes a little creativity to equitably manage the risk/reward ratio for all concerned.  I personally would avoid making it too messy.Aaron</blockquote>