Opt-in book licences pay authors several times what opt-out ones do
Where authors had to opt in, HarperCollins paid them $2,500 a title. Where inclusion was the default and authors could only opt out, the author's share was far lower: $205 to $355 a title at Arcadia (2025), under $100 at Johns Hopkins University Press, and $97 reported by one Taylor & Francis author (no opt-out at all). That is 7 to 26 times less.
Dated 3 Nov 2025Source checked 15 Oct 2026Quote found on its page again 17 Oct 2026Basis: indicative
“For those authors who do opt in, the deal provides for a $5,000 fee per book, split evenly between the author and the publisher at $2,500 each”
Publishers Weekly, Agents, Authors Question HarperCollins AI Deal, checked 25 Nov 2024
Cup of Coffee newsletter, Arcadia Publishing email to Belt authors, checked 3 Nov 2025
Slate, Arcadia Publishing: Your town's local history books might be used to train A.I., checked 3 Nov 2025
- One nonfiction book title, licensed for training for three years (HarperCollins)
- One-time AI training royalty Arcadia Publishing offered a Belt Publishing author (Rethinking Fandom, 2022) in its second round of sublicensing to an unnamed major technology company, opt-out by default
- AI training royalty per title paid to History Press (Arcadia Publishing) authors who stayed in Arcadia's 2025 sublicence to an unnamed technology company; one author took it for three titles
- What one Taylor & Francis author says they earned for their book under the publisher's AI training licence to Microsoft
- Arcadia Publishing, the US local-history publisher (History Press, Belt, Pelican imprints), has a catalogue of nearly 17,000 titles and sublicensed some of them to an unnamed technology company for AI training in two rounds in 2025.
It is shown on its own, not counted into a figure.
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