Amazon KDP has NOT paid royalties for 2Q12 so should I keep giving them books? @markcoker have u heard about this?
I released
Conditioned Response
on April 20th. It was a tumultuous release and didn't really start gaining traction until May, but I sold copies in both the Amazon Kindle Store and the Smashwords direct sales method in April.
And in May (LOTS! Thank you, everyone who bought a copy).
And in June (a few but I didn't really promote since I was focused on real life).
And I've already sold several in July though I'm giving the book away free now so I don't count "free giveaway" as "sales" even though they do impact my sales rank.
So I had figured back in April that I would see money from Amazon on or about July 1st (for the April, May and June sales) because that's what happened in the past over on my real name KDP Author Account. I have the same banking information correctly entered on both accounts so it shouldn't be a problem. But it is.
Amazon has not paid me, not one cent. It's been 2 weeks (just about, as today's the 13th) and there are threads on the KDP Community forums like "post here if you got paid in June" with a lot of people claiming to have received their royalty payments already--dating back to around June 20 something, in fact.
It's not millions or hundreds of thousands or even one thousand but it's more than $10. Interestingly enough, I got the $12.88 I was owed over on my real name Author account. So you would think if they could pay a double-digit royalty, they could pay a triple-digit royalty, right? Wrong.
Pursuing Amazon for my money (they are basically stealing my books if they're not paying me royalties on them) is a separate issue I'll have to contend with but I'm now wondering, should I really be considering giving them more books to steal? I mean if they cannot or will not pay Marjorie F. Baldwin the hundreds of dollars she is owed, but can pay me under my real name the ten bucks I earned "by accident" (I didn't promote the book, it sold itself) then why am I really considering giving them EXLUSIVE RIGHTS to the forthcoming short story When Minds Collide (WMC)?
I've been so keen on entering WMC into the KDP Select Program so as to try out its free giveaway process for "loss leading" sales of for-pay novels (to see if giving away WMC would sell Conditioned Response ) but given I have not yet been paid for Conditioned Response for the last 3 months, I'm having serious doubts about this.
I'd really like to hear what some of you think. I suspect I'll get more replies on Facebook and Twitter than here on the blog but please let me know your reaction to this non-payment by Amazon for 3 months of royalties. Several hundreds of dollars may not seem like much to quibble over, but it's a whole month's worth of life to me!
-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
And in May (LOTS! Thank you, everyone who bought a copy).
And in June (a few but I didn't really promote since I was focused on real life).
And I've already sold several in July though I'm giving the book away free now so I don't count "free giveaway" as "sales" even though they do impact my sales rank.
So I had figured back in April that I would see money from Amazon on or about July 1st (for the April, May and June sales) because that's what happened in the past over on my real name KDP Author Account. I have the same banking information correctly entered on both accounts so it shouldn't be a problem. But it is.
Amazon has not paid me, not one cent. It's been 2 weeks (just about, as today's the 13th) and there are threads on the KDP Community forums like "post here if you got paid in June" with a lot of people claiming to have received their royalty payments already--dating back to around June 20 something, in fact.
It's not millions or hundreds of thousands or even one thousand but it's more than $10. Interestingly enough, I got the $12.88 I was owed over on my real name Author account. So you would think if they could pay a double-digit royalty, they could pay a triple-digit royalty, right? Wrong.
Pursuing Amazon for my money (they are basically stealing my books if they're not paying me royalties on them) is a separate issue I'll have to contend with but I'm now wondering, should I really be considering giving them more books to steal? I mean if they cannot or will not pay Marjorie F. Baldwin the hundreds of dollars she is owed, but can pay me under my real name the ten bucks I earned "by accident" (I didn't promote the book, it sold itself) then why am I really considering giving them EXLUSIVE RIGHTS to the forthcoming short story When Minds Collide (WMC)?
I've been so keen on entering WMC into the KDP Select Program so as to try out its free giveaway process for "loss leading" sales of for-pay novels (to see if giving away WMC would sell Conditioned Response ) but given I have not yet been paid for Conditioned Response for the last 3 months, I'm having serious doubts about this.
I'd really like to hear what some of you think. I suspect I'll get more replies on Facebook and Twitter than here on the blog but please let me know your reaction to this non-payment by Amazon for 3 months of royalties. Several hundreds of dollars may not seem like much to quibble over, but it's a whole month's worth of life to me!
-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
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message 1:
by
Stephen
(new)
Jul 21, 2012 08:17AM
Under the circumstances, I can't see why you'd give them exclusive rights to your book either. And I'd definitly raise a stink about this.
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Stephen wrote: " Under the circumstances, I can't see why you'd give them exclusive rights to your book either. And I'd definitly raise a stink about this."I've posted 3 times but I'm far from the only one, Stephen. The KDP forums (behind the Dashboard, not the ones the customers see) are full of authors who have not been paid. I just don't get it. The ones who are enrolled in the Select program got paid. My OTHER Author ID got paid (her measly $12.88) and is NOT enrolled in KDP Select (and almost never sells her one and only book) but this ID, with good initial sales, suddenly is plummeting and NOT getting paid. I'm just really fed up.
Time to focus on the Apple iBookstore, which is de facto the #1 eBookseller in the world--that is, not just in the US but the entire planet because Amazon doesn't "own the world," only the US.
I suggest you send an email to amazon's investor relations dept. That tends to cut through a lot of bureacratic bs. I speak from experience on this.
