Ask Playbill.com got the lowdown on cast album royalties from Kurt Deutsch, president of Sh-K-Boom Records. Royalties are typically $1.50 to $2.00 per album with 60% going to the writers (composer, lyricist, book writer) and 40% going to the producers of the show. 15% or 20% of the producers’ share is split between the performers. However, royalties don’t kick in until the sum of the royalty portion (the $1.50-$2.00) of all albums sold goes over the album’s production & marketing costs. So if an album with a $2 royalty cost $500,000, then 250,000 copies would need to be sold before royalties were paid out. Few cast albums sell enough to make royalties. However, the songwriters do make a “mechanical royalty” on every album (around eight cents a song) and the performers are paid well for their recording time: one week’s salary for an 8 hour recording session and the same rate for every additional hour (1/8 a week’s salary / hour). (via Amazon’s Daily blog)