The perversely tiny fraction of retail price earned by the small minority of authors who ever receive any royalties at all is scanty, rude, and — to people outside the publishing industry — downright bizarre. Doyle Brunson was so stunned by the royalty schedule proposed by a prospective publisher of his poker manual Super/System, he said, “No, thanks,” and used his own capital to self-publish. Brunson of course was an outsider, and had money. (And thanks to alternative publishing, he now has a lot more of it.) As the cost of alternative means of distribution continues to fall, Brunson’s approach becomes increasingly viable, even for non-wealthy writers.

In a world where content-creators can attract public attention at little or no cost, based largely on their own creativity and vim, and can distribute their content at negligible cost, the antiquated model of the publishing world is doomed. Writers of the future will expect, and will get, a greater portion of their project’s revenue, not a lesser one.

Why else would contracts be written such that royalties massively *increase* when a sufficiently huge number of books are sold? Because the publisher knows that isn’t going to happen, and the author can go on hoping. (I note that even your proposal includes this economically irrational escalator.) Doubtless if both author and publisher weren’t irrational optimists, they’d go into some less risky line of work, but