Visionaries make startling discovery.

Self-described publishing “visionary” and, er, agent Richard Curtis has not just a blog but, as he calls it, a “special blog,” and on today’s special entry he discusses the announcement by Random House that, as the still-developing new business of selling e-books continues to take shape, it has decided it needs to adjust the way it pays out royalties. In short, e-books aren’t making a lot of money yet, and Random has decided to follow the lead of numerous independent publishers by switching from a royalty based on list prices (which, as it turns out, few books are sold at) to a royalty based on actual net proceeds.

The visionary Curtis offers a detailed breakdown to support his conclusion that “Random House’s change is defnitely a reduction of e-book income for authors.” On the e-newsletter Publishers Lunch (not available on line), equally visionary agent Simon Lipskar of Writers House also points out that — hey, wait a minute! — net royalties are not the same as royalties off list! He continues by saying that “While I can understand the a desire to move to a net royalty, I fail to understand why the net royalty is arbitrarily … lower than retail royalty.” What’s more, he says, “If they did the same thing on print books there would be outrage.”

Let’s review: He understands an attraction to something different like net royalties, but only if they’re, well, exactly the same as traditional royalties. Hmm. Meanwhile, neither Curtis nor Lipskar observe that actually, many publishers of “print books” already are using net royalties schedules … partly due to the demand by agents for lots of upfront money in the form of advance royatlies.