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Is Amazon showing all your book sales?
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I haven't read the particular thread you mentioned but I have seen similar ones. If I remember correctly, Amazon can take up to a week to post a sale due to credit card processing. I would imagine processing could take even longer at this time of the year.I would also imagine that Amazon's servers are under a particularly heavy load at this time of year too, which could account for delays.
I'm lucky, I've sold a couple of thousand copies this month, so identifying whether any have been missed is impossible, but for new writers who have families and friend telling them they are buying their book, I would imagine it could be a little on the disturbing side.
I have no way of telling if they are accurately reporting my total number of sales, but I have taken issue with them regarding their discounting of my book sales from the 70% to the 35% rate. According to Amazon, any time my book sells in non-US territories, the sale price is paid at the 35% royalty. That is fine, I read that when I set up the book at the 70% option.
However, the quantity of sales they say are from non-US territories, in proportion to my US sales seems unlikely. The percentage comes out to an average of more than 8% per month, which equates to 2 non-US territory sales of every 25 total sales. Though I would love to think my book is that popular outside the US, I have done no marketing to non-US territories. Amazon can't even tell me where they have sold, as they say their system doesn't have that data. They provide no information whatsoever, just that they can confirm that the sales are correct. I'm not so sure.
I have a similar issue with actual books. I was told if someone buys your book threw Amazon they have so many months to contact the publishing company with the sales n then the person gets the royalties but its a big waiting process.. :/
Apparently B&N does the same. Stop sweating about it(says the writer who doesn't sell much anywhere and doesn't have friends who buy her books so has no idea if she's actually selling or not).
I know Amazon have over the past year had a while where they don't report any sales at all and then you get them all in a big lump a week later. Worried me the first time it happened but it does seem to be busy periods.JAC
Barbara wrote: "Apparently B&N does the same. Stop sweating about it(says the writer who doesn't sell much anywhere and doesn't have friends who buy her books so has no idea if she's actually selling or not)."
Aww me too! Im the same way, dont sell much, dont have friends who buy and I have no clue if im selling or not! I feel your pain!
Another surprise I get from amazon from time to time is where they sell the book for 50% off the list price (the latest instance was a print version) and then give me the 30% royalty instead of the 70%. Of course, this is done without notice and there's no way to know about it until after the fact. I guess this happened a lot in the Christmas promotions. Oh well, a sale is a sale and some royalty is better than none.
Lee wrote: "Another surprise I get from amazon from time to time is where they sell the book for 50% off the list price (the latest instance was a print version) and then give me the 30% royalty instead of the..."Still... I don't think that's appropriate, unless it was part of the agreement in using KDP.
Experiment wrote: "Lee wrote: "Another surprise I get from amazon from time to time is where they sell the book for 50% off the list price (the latest instance was a print version) and then give me the 30% royalty in..."Yeah, the agreement says they can sell at any price. The price you list is a maximum. Sucks, but what can you do. B&N does the same. The really bad deal is the Extended Distribution via Createspace. You pay $39 so that third party booksellers can sell print copies for shit, which is what you get.
Yikes. The hard to track sales on Kindle books is aggravating enough and now you say that once CreateSpace makes my paperback available there'll be more grief?
Harriet wrote: "Yikes. The hard to track sales on Kindle books is aggravating enough and now you say that once CreateSpace makes my paperback available there'll be more grief?"Just don't elect Expanded Distribution and pay them $39. Then the only other difference from Kindle is that the minimum price you can ask depends on how many pages there are in your book. If you have a big fat book and don't charge enough, you'll have to pay them to sell it. Assuming you set the list price high enough (you can figure this using their Royalty Calculator), then the worst that can happen is that they decide to sell under list and you get a lower royalty (30% instead of 70% depending on how deep amazon cuts the price). As they say in boxing, protect yourself at all times!
Still, amazon and B&N are a boon for self-published authors like me. Before them we had to pay vanity pirates (un, publishers) to get our books in print. Now vanity actually more than pays for itself and some people do actually read our books. :)
Though it's worth noting that if your ebook is priced high enough for a discount to sting, you have the choice of going for the 35% royalty and always getting 35% of the list price. If you go for 70% royalty you get 70% of what they sell it for - it's just working out which works better for you.JAC
My understanding is that if you opt out of Expanded Distribution, bookstores can't order via their normal wholesale suppliers. Yes?
Harriet wrote: "My understanding is that if you opt out of Expanded Distribution, bookstores can't order via their normal wholesale suppliers. Yes?"I really don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised. The only bookstore I was interested in was B&N and they wouldn't order a book printed by Createspace.
I was thinking more of local indie bookstores.
Lee wrote: "Harriet wrote: "My understanding is that if you opt out of Expanded Distribution, bookstores can't order via their normal wholesale suppliers. Yes?"I really don't know, but I wouldn't be surprise..."
They do it for Lulu, why not CreateSpace? I wonder why.
The most expensive place to get my book is Amazon, like 24.95..crazy! and if anyone buys it from there which i happen to know a few people said they did, i wont get the royalties for that util they contact my publishing company
URGENT! Hi, if you have books on Amazon, PLEASE check your account info - somehow there's a glitch...and if you had direct deposit/foreign currency into USD, it's reverted back to check and individual currency payments.... and then wait 24 hours to check again! Please spread this around to other authors!
Lee wrote: "URGENT! Hi, if you have books on Amazon, PLEASE check your account info - somehow there's a glitch...and if you had direct deposit/foreign currency into USD, it's reverted back to check and individ..."This must be related to the email I received from Amazon this morning, saying there were errors in my deposit info. Turns out that the payment terms I had indicated were deleted.
Has anyone else had the same experience?