Ebook Royalties - a New Battleground?

As the time to publish my ebook draws near, I have been looking at the royalties offered by the big names in the ebook reader market.

Amazon's Kindle store is the definite industry leader, with around 70% market share. Interestingly they also have one of the better deals for authors. Provided that you price your ebook between $2.99 and $9.99, they pay back 70% of the sale price in all of their major markets. While this $10 ceiling has angered a lot of established authors - used to selling a heap of printed book at well over double that; it remains the equal best royalty deal out there. There is a slight annoyance though. Kindle tends to charge customers in smaller markets a hidden 'delivery fee'. Hidden? Well they say it's free, but they add anything up to $2 onto the agreed cost of an ebook, and then the customer gets it electronically delivered 'free'. Not my idea of free - yours?

Apple's iBooks comes in next with around 15% of ebook sales. They also offer a 70% give back to the creator of the work. They take their time with publishing though, with a lag time of around 3 weeks from submission to availability in the iBook store. In contrast Kindle promises a turnaround of just 3 days.

The remainder of the market is basically split up amongst the other known electronic reader distributors.

Sony with a small percentage of the market elect to retain 50% of the sale price of the books in its catalog. It would be interesting to hear their justification for keeping half of the books gross price - simply for hosting it on their site. I do not believe I will release my ebook with them, and I believe from what I read, that I am far from alone. Barnes & Noble with a similar market share also think it reasonable to snatch 50% as a commission. Nope, not them either.

Lesser known players like Kobo and Copia currently match the big guys and return 70% of the sale price to the author. Finally an outfit called Gardners manages to split the difference by offering a 60% return to the creator.

So from what I have learnt so far, for around 90% market penetration, and a 70% return of the sales price, it is advisable to go with Kindle, Apple, Kobo and Copia.

What do you think? I'd welcome feedback from both fellow writers and avid readers.