Guest post by John. R. Clark, Managing Editor at AgeView Press
When AgeView Press Indie pubbed the book FLYING SOLO in May of 2012, the author, Jeanette Vaughan immediately began tracking sales. She heard from excited friends and family who immediately emailed when ordering their copies. The first sales were off of Createspace’s e-store with the title ID number given to the author. Then, through Amazon, a week later, when the book went live on the site. Finally on Kindle, when the ebook format was completed.
“Where, oh where are my royalties?”
Initially, things appeared kosher. People exclaiming that they had ordered the book, were showing up within a day or two on the electronic royalty reports with a reasaonable accuracy. But by June and July, sales descrepencies were noted by the author from customers claiming that they had purchased the book directly through Amazon, not an Amazon affiliate. Many of these sales were simply not listed.The author contacted Createspace customer support, who gave assurance that all sales were being accurately reported. FLYING SOLO was now also on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select as well as expanded distribution channels, which included Amazon affiliates in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Sales were being reported to the author from readers and bookclubs in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The first note of apparent discrepancy came when a dear friend of the author ordered three copies of the book from Amazon in June. These books were ordered all at the same time, from Amazon.com direct. Yet, that cluster of three sales was never posted as such. Another instance in early July involved the same issue. Again, a customer ordered three copies, yet no sales were trackable through Amazons channels for three sale purchased on the same day.
Meantime, the author was making public appearnances, being featured on blogs and radio, and rounding with booksignings. During the months of June and July, no expanded distribution channel sales were posted on the royalty report, yet customers were emailing the author letting her know how much the book was being enjoyed overseas. More than 15 five star reviews for the novel were posted on Amazon.
What should have shown as a surge of sales, as the book peaked, never appeared on the royalty reports. The author was suspect. She contacted Ingram directly, only to be informed that they were not supposed to reveal information to an author directly. So, the Indie publisher, AgeView Press made the call. Ingram showed 16 copies of the book ordered through their system total since May. Those sales never showed on the June or July royalty report. The author filed formal complaints with Createspace customer service, but received only canned letters in response explaining that indeed there was an issue with reports in Expanded Distribution and it was being investigated. Advice to author? Please be patient.
By August, it was clear there were gross in accuracies. The 30 copies ordered from Barnes and Noble never showed up. Few if any sales were listed for August. Yet the author had confirmation of over 4,000 copies in distribution worldwide. The crowning blow came in September. A plan was devised. A friend, agreed to help with the investigation. She ordered a copy of FLYING SOLO on September 7th, taking screen shots of her order and confirmation of payment directly from Amazon. She printed out here receipt showing date and time of purchase. The book arrived on September 13, to San Jose, California. Photos were taken. The sale was complete. Copies of all screenshots and receipts were scanned and sent to the author. By September 20th, no sales were shown at all on Createspaces report. Phoning Createspace, the author was informed that no sales were showing for Amazon for the month for that title. It was time for outrage! What had been suspected, had now been proven. Not once, but twice!
Time to climb up the foodchain. After many phonecalls and emails to Createspace, a Senior customer service “executive” phoned personally and stated he would investigate. Talk about a wacky result. Due to the print on demand status of Createspace books, sometimes they are one or two books ahead. Thus even though your book was printed in one month, but sold in another, a royalty might actually show up in the prior month for that sale. What???
No one expects to get rich off of writing a book. Few and far between are the Oprah Bookclub golden orbs of success. But how are authors to trust a system, happy to take their money for assisting to create and publish a book, which does not thoroughly, detail accurate sales? Simply outrageous. What options does that leave the Indie publishers? How can they possibly track the success of their marketing efforts. Is the publishing world doomed to be controlled by the big six? Are small bookstores and Indie presses to be overrun by powershouse chains which offer the Indie published writer no turf?
How can the press or the author be sure those sales are accurate with no detail? Rise up Indie authors! Repost this story! Tweet it, facebook it. Make it go viral. Print it and send it to your local newspaper and the Associated Press. This abject fraud is outrageous and MUST STOP!
John R. Clark, Managing Editor, AgeView Press
Sadly, I’m seeing the same types of discrepencies with small publishers. I’m actually quite surprised to hear about your experience with Createspace. I will keep a closer eye on my client’s accounts.
http://www.authorsassistant.com
Please make sure you facebook and retweet the post if possible! Include @AP to the Associated press in your tweet.
I’m having the same experience with CreateSpace/Amazon right now. I had book launch last week and numbers aren’t adding up. I see my ranking go up on Amazon, but no report of sales on CreateSpace. I wrote them about this two days ago. No response so far from a company that was stellar about responding during the publication phase of this process. Very disheartening considering the time, money and soul that I’ve put into my debut novel. I will be making a phone call when I get home. Retweeting, etc. This practice needs to stop.
Please make sure you retweet this post. My twitter is @VaughanJeanette Send it also when retweeting to the @AP Associated Press. This story is BIG!
This isn’t a case of corruption. The author and publisher simply don’t understand how the system works. Amazon frequently orders extra copies to keep titles in stock. Amazon pays for those books up front, which is far more helpful than waiting until customers buy them.
Judging by the sales rank and the absence of Also Boughts for Flying Solo (if a book hasn’t sold many copies, the Amazon page will display a row of books customers have also _viewed_. When an indeterminate, but certainly higher, number of copies sell, it switches to books customers have also _bought_), Flying Solo has sold very few copies at all through Amazon.
Cameron, you don’t have the facts straight. I am missing over 50 sales from expanded distribution. Proven by receipts from bookstores that ordered them. My colleague is missing over 500 copies in sales. Those numbers don’t lie. I understand what you are saying about extra copies….der. And as for total sales…I would say that over 500 copies in sales and over 4000 in distribution are pretty good numbers for a lil ol indpependant book published less than 6 months ago.
My name is Colin Remedios, author of two sci-fi novels, Blacktrion – Desolation and Blacktrion – Dark Secrets. My account with Createspace has shown no sales, and yet a online bookstore in Australia has sold a significant number of books. Though it’s not on the bestseller list, sales have been very good. So, why hasn’t this been reflected in my sales? Createspace has responded, but has not been honest with their answer. I, too, am a victim of Createspace’s deceitfulness. Once the word gets out, I’m sure would-be authors will take their work elsewhere…or rather they should take it elsewhere.
Yes…it is a shocker. The author I spoke of in the post is afraid to come forward, as he/she is certain her publishing contract that he/she has obtained will be disolved by the Big Six. The evidence is overwhelming!!! that people are getting ripped off big time!!!
Thank you for posting this. I’m about to sign up with CreateSpace to publish my debut novel, so any news on this issue is appreciated. I’ll be asking CS about this issue, you can bet!
They will deny it of course Katy…but just look at all the comments here. Many of the authors in my group say the same thing.
I’m having a similar experience, but am having a hard time believing CreateSpace or Amazon would bother stealing pennies from me.
Still, the reports have no transaction numbers, so it’s impossible to find a specific purchase on them.
If they are stealing, it’s a stupid business strategy.
I don’t think it so much as stealing as very poor accounting and record keeping. It takes weeks to get the reports back from all of the “vendors” that they let post on their sites. Between Ingram and Lightening Source the accuracy is shotty at best. It hurts the small press folks like us tremendously. Many books get purchase and never reported.
I’ll definitely share this. I’m already furious from a problem I experienced. You might be interested in seeing what happened to me re Createspace. Problems with paperback quality from third party sellers …
Here are the three posts I wrote following the progress of my complaint:
http://thealliterativeallomorph.blogspot.gr/2013/02/createspace-users-be-warned.html
http://thealliterativeallomorph.blogspot.gr/2013/02/createspace-issue-follow-up.html
http://thealliterativeallomorph.blogspot.gr/2013/02/createspace-expanded-distribution-can.html
Reblogged this on Down Unpaved Roads and commented:
If you’re considering working with Createspace, this is something to consider.
Reblogged this on C h a z z W r i t e s and commented:
Like the author of this post, I suspect this is a case of a systems problem rather than any attempt to steal. Personally, I’ve ordered copies of my books from CreateSpace that never showed up. They were fairly quickly replaced when I complained and the service desk at CreateSpace are friendly, kind and helpful people. However, it happened more than once. Obviously there are glitches to work out. I’d be more confident if mistakes weren’t repeated. (Lesson: Make mistakes, but try to make new ones to learn from.)
Traditional publishers, too, have a history of slow accounting practices. Though that was common, it didn’t suck any less for authors. With current tracking capabilities (i.e. computers), I can’t imagine why that sort of ineptitude should continue. A small delay? Okay. When you have data dripping in from multiple venues, that’s understandable. However, from the description on this post, it sounds like there are lots of promises to investigate but not a lot of cozy answers forthcoming quickly.
I hope the authors get their answers and any outstanding royalties due soon. For most of us, if we lose sales due to accounting issues, we won’t know it. That’s why we must have a clean accounting system working with transparency, clarity and timeliness. Screw with our confidence in the system and we’ll find someone else to fill the role.
[...] See on jeanettevaughan.wordpress.com [...]
While I don’t doubt that mistakes do happen (you know how computers are) it’s the lack of responsiveness that troubles me most. Poor Jamie McGuire is right now having her coffers drained dry for no apparent reason by a bizarre email sent out to her ebook customers encouraging them to seek a refund. She’s tried to get the issue resolved, but has reported getting only terse responses that don’t answer the question as to why this is happening to her.
Again, I accept that glitches and mistakes happen, but a company like Amazon should be on top of them. They’re not a little mom-and-pop operation with only a handful of employees that can’t afford to operate outside of bankers’ hours.
Furthermore, indie authors BUILT the Kindle empire While the Big Six were fighting the very concept of ebooks and struggling to keep them as expensive (or more) than the paper versions, indie authors were offering low-cost and free books that helped drive Kindle to the dominance it has in the marketplace today.
I’m deeply disappointed by this. I’ve always been one of Amazon’s greatest fans because of the stellar customer service they’ve provided me. I was with them back when they were a little company that sent me a five dollar gift certificate every week to try to entice me to shop, and I’ve always tried to send business their way when asked my opinion on which company to use.
When they changed the algorithms, I winced. When my mother’s Kindle broke and they didn’t offer her the kind of service they did when it happened to me, I winced harder. And now, this… What’s happened, Amazon? I expect better from you.
Thank you very much for sharing this, Jeanette, and yes I’ll be tweeting it multiple times and sharing it all over the place. It was just posted in one of my Facebook author groups by another author, because several of us have been suspicious about the accuracy of our sales reports for some time. A little more than a week ago, someone in the UK tweeted me that they’d just downloaded my book from Kindle. Until now, that download hasn’t been recorded on my sales report. Yesterday, the same thing happened – someone else in the UK tweeted me that they’d grabbed the book. Again, not a sign of a download on my sales report. I haven’t been involved with book clubs of late, so have no way of knowing how many other readers have bought my book, which is the case with most Indie authors. We rely entirely on Amazon for that information. Well, it would appear that it’s misplaced trust. I’m not going as far as to say Amazon is intentionally ripping us off, but I believe there’s a major glitch in their system that’s hurting a lot of authors. Thanks for making us aware that there really is a problem.
[...] Do Amazon and Createspace rip off Indie publishers with failure to correctly report sales?. [...]
[...] Do Amazon and Createspace rip off Indie publishers with failure to correctly report sales?. [...]
Reblogged this on MY BLOG13.
Many thanks. I wish we could get enough people for a class action lawsuit.
Thanks for the information. I’m reblogging this on my blog too.
Reblogged this on SandraBranum's Blog and commented:
This is a very interesting article.
I just wish some big media giant would see it and actually do a story. Maybe we would get our money!!!!
Thanks for sharing. Yes, I will re-blog this and share it on facebook as well. Now i understand why my first statement of sale 1 week after publishing on kindle reflected 3 sales but only royalties for 2 despite no refunds. At first I let it past, thinking its probably a glitch. now i think it is a much bigger problem than that and IT HAS TO STOP!
[...] Do Amazon and Createspace rip off Indie publishers with failure to correctly report sales?. [...]
[...] to the rest at Jeanette Vaughn and thanks to Sariah for the [...]
I have a royalty payment issue with Createspace at the moment. Had 3 emails (all standard, identical wording) assuring me they are looking into the unpaid money and to be patient. 2 weeks and counting, patience wearing thin.
I truly independently published my memoir Growing Up Country – meaning I also found a printer and took possession of thousands of books. I was thinking of trying Createspace with my upcoming novel, but this discussion assures me I will not. Publishing independently (truly independently) takes a little more work, but it sure sounds as though it was worth the effort. Thanks for this post.
Email 4 jsut arrived. Sadly it says the same as email 1 2 and 3. Your querey should be resolved soon, please be patient.
Why would anyone be surprised by any of this? Seriously. It was never Amazon’s mission to help indie authors and indie publishers. Amazon is a business. Never let that little fact escape your mind.
Really worrying. I’m tweeting
Thanks for sharing, I just came across this thanks to Passive Voice…Shall reblog it too, as soon as I have a space on my blog…i.e. next week, sorry about the delay but it will keep the issue up front where it deserves to be!
Claude you are very inspirational. This is a systemic problem that now is affecting all the Indie writers publishing with them across the pond in the UK. I really hope we can get bloggers to take this on! We need a media outlet do to the story. My gosh, just on my blog alone there are over 50 comments for both articles! How do we get the word out!
Caring is one thing…yes it’s awful and empathy good, but we MUST take action!!!
As to the amount lost being mere pennies, as someone has suggested, think about it–if once a month Amazon keeps the entire sale price from each book listed in their Kindle library alone, that’s a nice chunk of change, or added cash flow. What about all those regular print books, too? And what incentive do they have to stop “under-reporting” sales or fix this so-called glitch? None. Nada. Zip.
Don’t kid yourself–when Amazon and Jeff Bezos needed all of us to survive, we showed up wallet in hand, but now that they’re the eight-hundred pound Amazon stalking the jungle, we’re simply prey.
This is all very frightening and disheartening. I am both traditionally published and indie published, and I have no way of verifying whether or not I’m being cheated on a grand scale. When will authors be able to trust the sales numbers coming from ANY publisher? I will tweet this out to my followers.
Thanks for reblogging and tweeting. We must keep the momentum going. Some media person must take notice. I had an AP reporter call email me. When she went to the site, she said. . not enough comments. It appears that it isn’t a widespread problem. Those are the same responses I have gotten like many of you have from CreateSpace and Amazon. “You just don’t understand the process with expanded distribution.” “Really? . . . NOT!”
I do understand. The problem is simple, like 8411c said below. . we were all there for them with their wallets and now they have grown so big and HUGE with everybody and their dog wanting to self publish. . . they have outgrown themselves and can’t keep track of their own global marketing and sales. HELP!!! HELP!!! We need lawyer people.
Reblogged this on Self Write and commented:
What do you think of this?
I am an indie publisher who has worked through Createspace for many years. The chain of events of this story does not add up.
First, Createspace is never, EVER going to provide sales data to the author. Why? Because the author is not the account holder. Createspace will ONLY provide sales data to the account holder, which is the publisher. If you got a stock answer from Createspace, it is because they are not authorized to give out personal information about accounts that do not belong to you.
Same thing with Ingrams. They are NOT going to give the author information because the author is not the account holder. In fact, Ingrams won’t even give the publisher in this case sales data because the account holder is CREATESPACE, not the publisher. Ingrams reports sales to CS. Because CS is their client.
Insofar as sales made to retailers, sales are reported based on sales to STORES, not sales to customers. What that means is, if Amazon or Barnes and Noble buy ten copies of the book in January (and they do sometimes buy stock of POD titles. They do it with my titles all the time), those sales are reported in January. If it takes them three months to sell those copies, it doesn’t matter. The sales were already paid. So if Jane Doe buys a copy in April, the sale does not get counted again. It was already counted.
This story stinks because I think the PUBLISHER is the one screwing with the author. Not Createspace. For example, of those 15 five star reviews, only a few of them show as verified purchases. Did the publisher send out review copies Did the publisher pay a review service to generate reviews? Reviews don’t equal sales volume. Many publishers send out comp copies to generate reviews before release. How are you confirming 40000 sales? Demanding copies of sales receipts from people?
I am ready. #follow a guy on twitter named @burkeslaw He wants to hear about all of our concerns and may take the case.
I am to phone him. We need a media contact though. . . that is what will do it.
As a publisher who’s worked with Ingram, Lightning Source, KDP, and Create Space, I can verify that an author cannot get any sales information whatsoever from any of these companies unless he’s an Indie published author who is not working through a publishing house.
If his work is published through a publishing house, as are my authors’ books, then the reports are under my House’s username & are password-protected. Even my employees/interns do not have access to that information since it includes the authors’ social security numbers, so I handle all those things myself.
Authors get reports of sales in the annual or bi-annual Royalty statements. Mine is the only publishing house that I know of which allows authors to request copies of the actual Lightning Source, KDP, etc sales reports, annually, free of charge & without auditing us. (Of course, no author is permitted to see any other author’s sales reports, not is any family member, such as a spouse, permitted to request same from me; also, author must request it in writing, from their email/address of record so that no one else gains access to this information.)
I do that because I was traditionally published for over 20 years, no sales were ever reported despite all the books I signed/sold at bookstore readings and at conferences etc. That is why, after I retired, I started a literary House for (mostly) literary authors in all genres: because it’s more difficult for them to get published by NY (even harder now since The Great Recession) and impossible for them to get sales figures.
Still, this story as reported in the blog does strike an odd note. Authors cannot get these figures if they have an independent publisher. I even had an author and her husband try to buy books directly from Lightning Source – apparently the 30% discount offered to the author per contract was insufficient & she decided she wanted to pay only the printing and shipping costs. First she, then her husband, who has a different last name, contacted Lightning Source and Ingram, claiming to be employees of my publishing House and “losing” the password and “user name” on the account. Both companies immediately contacted me to inform me of this. On the same day, within an hour of this author’s attempting to “break in” to their system. (I took the author’s book out of print and gave her the publishing rights back, advising her to self-publish.)
Again, unless an author is Indie/self-published with KDP and Create Space, with his own private username and password, he will not have access to sales reports. Even then, they do not report daily, only weekly, monthly, and monies from last 6 weeks in their reports. There simply are no daily reports.
As far as I know, only publishers can get accounts with Lightning Source and Ingram: I had to go through a background check with both companies when starting my publishing house 12 years ago, provide business financial records and references in my company’s name – not in my own – and have a Federal EIN, State business license #, articles of incorporation #, etc which LSI & Ingram investigated before they gave my Publishing House an account, not me personally. As CEO, of course, I have access to that account, but I do not have a “personal” account.
If this author who suspects misreported sales from Amazon is published by a publisher, then it is the publisher who is most likely mis-reporting (especially since many publishers have switched from LSI to CS, as we have, because the latter is seriously undercutting the printing costs of the former with the same or higher quality of Trade Paper books). If the author is Indie/self-published by CS & KDP, I’d still like to know how he gets daily reports. I can’t get them anywhere.
If this author is published by a publisher and suspects sales-reporting mistakes, then he needs to contact his agent, which is the person who would investigate & analyze the author’s Royalty Statements.
Sorry, but something in this story doesn’t ring true, based on my experience with all companies involved, as a traditionally published author, an Indie published author, and as the Founder/CEO of a literary publishing House, with several authors, that’s been in business & publishing for last 12 years.
Also, with publishers, returns are subtracted from sales and both figures are reported on authors’ Royalty Statements. All that is detailed in author’s contract with his publisher. If author is Indie/self-published and has his own account (with username & password) with KDP & CS, then the returns & borrows are also reported, but again, this is weekly, monthly, etc. as I stated earlier. Ebooks can, indeed, be returned. And KDP reports those. CS would have nothing to do with books that are sold by outside bookstores: neither would Amazon.
Bookstores buy books from Ingram at discounts of 39-55%, depending on the volume of books and number of different titles, which is how bookstores, even those who are affiliates selling their titles through Amazon.com, are able to discount books’ cover price: because bookstores have never paid cover price for book. Also, authors only get percentage of their books’ cover price, not the full amount.
It sounds more and more like this “author” doesn’t know the business of selling books at all. Amazon does not need to buy books and sell them cheaper: it already gets the highest discount from Ingram that the industry allows. Always has. Because of the volume of books and the massive number of titles. And Ingram decides on that %discount, not the bookstores/Amazon themselves. Publishers themselves set the maximum discount retailers can get when ordering their books for sale, and if the publisher doesn’t allow 50% discount of the listed cover price, for example, then Ingram doesn’t allow that bookstore to order that book through its channels.
Ingram also gets a percentage of the book’s cover price – for distribution. So even if the publisher is keeping the author’s monies, the publisher won’t be getting that much more (10% of cover price, maybe, which is usually what authors get) unless author is a bestseller. Even Stephen King complains that his publisher under-reports sales and keeps a large amount of his money.
As the “author” I am very familiar with small press and indie press. Also the fact that Ingram and Amazon corner the market for online sales and distribution. The lack of record keeping between the Barnes and Noble vendor who ordered through Ingram and Create Space’s delay and failure to note those huge orders is what sparked this story. Barnes and Noble special ordered 60 copies of this book which were never reported through expanded distribution. Not until the publisher, who in this case was me the “author” fought it. Ninety days later. . .only 1/2 of the sale ever showed. They are still not showing.
Hi, Jeannette. I re-tweeted this and posted about it on my blog with a link back to this article. It’s very disturbing to hear as I have a volume about ready to publish and Createspace was my leading choice. I will be following this issue very closely now. I’m sorry that you and other writers much experience this but thanks to you and Mr. Clark for the head’s up!
very sad to read this ……… being about to embark down that road ……
[...] Do Amazon and Createspace rip off Indie publishers with failure to correctly report sales?. [...]
Has anyone sent any of these questions or related correspondence to Jeff Bezos direct or to a reporter who covers Amazon or the trade publishing industry?
The highest I managed to get was the executive VP for customer service who assured me he traced the sales. But many still did not appear.
I just got a bullshit letter from Create Space’s “customer service” people that essentially said if I didn’t sell my novels through an actual retailer, they get to keep all my money. What they refused to explain was how I could buy three copies of both my books and still get royalties for just two. My understanding was, if you sell your CS books to private individuals, you get a royalty. But now they’re telling me I don’t. Meanwhile, they’re grabbing the money sent to them from my readers (including me) and not sharing a penny with me. Well, if I can’t expect a payment when I sell to private readers, then what the fuck’s the sense of publishing with these jackals, in the first place? This is corporate predation, plain and simple. I think it’s time for us to get organized and file a class action lawsuit. In the meantime, I’m going to go public with this ridiculous letter I just got and actually tell people not to buy my books. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let those bloated fucks keep every penny of my money. They’re ensuring I never make it anywhere close to the $10 threshold, which means they get to keep even the $3.42 with which they’re crediting me.
Hi Jeanette,
I have had the same problem with Amazon and Ingram. My first book “CAPITALIZE on CREDIT POWER” was printed by Ingram (Lightning Source) and Amazon picked my book up off of their catalog. Immediately 26 booksellers were selling my book as a used book on Amazon. I had not sold 26 books yet. They were selling the books new and used for less than it would cost them to buy the book wholesale. I started writing to the affiliate sellers asking where they were getting the used books. Many dropped the listings. I just checked there are 3 new seller including Amazon and 3 used sellers. I requested Ingram remove my book completely from the catalog. I am the only person who can order the book, but it is still offered by Amazon and other book sellers.
Time for criminal felony charges and a class action lawsuit!
Let’s put our information together and file!
Alexis Stuart
Credit Whisperer®
creditwhisperer@gmail.com
I scheduled tweets via various accounts. The tweets will be going out throughout the day. I plan on reposting it on The Masquerade Crew, probably tomorrow or late tonight. I’m not a big media outlet, but my traffic is your traffic.
Here’s my repost: http://masqueradecrew.blogspot.com/2013/03/do-amazon-and-createspace-rip-off-indie.html
Thanks so much masqcrew! We need strength in numbers. I think its a widespread problem and issue. I sure appreciate you!
I’m not worried how my book sales are logged as much as the fact that my ebook is listed as #245,000 in sales on one day and #35,000 a day later but I didn’t sell 210,000 copies… I wish I did…
That’s not how the sales rank works. You don’t go up or down 1 for each book sold. It’s a complicated calculation that only Amazon knows. One sale can move you by several thousand to several hundred thousand points, all depending on where you are in the rank and how often you sell books. If you don’t continue to sell, it will slowly migrate to a higher number.
This is not good at all. I really hope this is an anomaly & not the norm. Authors work too hard to create art, spend money to polish it so they can publish it. They NEED their royalties reported & paid accurately. Shame on those in question. Shared!
Reblogged this on Collision of Worlds.
I sense a class action law suit coming on…
I’m curious as to how anyone is tracking daily sales. KDP only reports weekly, monthly, and monies for past 6 weeks. How does author/publisher even discover “3 sales on the same day”? Unless this author/publisher’s accounts are dramatically different from mine and those of my publisher’s, I’m confused.
In this case, I as the author co-own the small press. So any reports going to the small press I see. But yes you are correct, if self pub’d you would see those. I think in many cases the “indie pub’d” author is self pubbed. Would be interesting to see the stats on that. But that is where the complain lies. As a self pubbed, indie pubbed author it is your Create Space account. Amazon can see the Lightening source reports and Ingrams reports, but they are only reported in numbers to the client of Create Space. No break down as to where those sales came from. They have difficutly is sorting out whether they were overseas orders too.
No reply button on your previous response, so I’ll have to reply here.
You are aware that bookstores often order books in bulk, keep them for a long time before actually selling them to customers, and can return them at any time for no reason, aren’t you? When Borders closed, my publishing House got thousands of dollars of returns from books that Borders stores all over the country had ordered up to 4 years previously, and for which I’d already paid author royalties. Boy, did I ever lose money. I learned quickly to change the authors’ contracts so that any money I’ve invested in the books has to be earned out before they get royalties, and now understand why large NY Houses hold a 10% “Reserve against Returns” because once the Royalties are paid to the author, the publisher can’t get them back.
As for Ingram, it is a distributor: it merely fulfills orders. LSI is owned by Ingram but is merely the printer, nothing else. LSI prints the books that bookstores order from Ingram, who is LSI’s only distributor, obviously, since Ingram owns LSI. Some small publishing houses, like mine, also have Ingram as a distributor (for a % of the cover price of each book sold) and I assume that most large Houses use Ingram since it is the largest distributor in the world. Other small houses use small, independent distributors to ship their books to bookstores. Many of these distributors are regional and often make the small publisher “apply” and demonstrate the quality of their books’ content before the small press is accepted for distribution. They also charge a % of cover price, but since they are smaller and deal in less volume, they often charge a much higher percentage than Ingram.
Why would Amazon be able to see LSI reports? Because it has books printed there? Because it is a bookstore, albeit an online one? Create Space should not be able to see any sales figures from Lightning Source unless it has a publisher’s account with LSI. I’m confused.
My sales reports from KDP do show sales from different countries, but of course, do not show individual bookstore sales. Also, KDP payments are 60-90 days behind, to allow for returns, etc. and will direct deposit any amount regularly (I have had no problems with them) but will only send checks once they reach (I think) a $100 minimum. If your books are making less than that amount and you are concerned about Amazon’s KDP holding your money, you simply have to switch to direct deposit. In the past year since we switched to ebooks, we receive a monthly email detailing the sales figures, percentage payments (different countries pay different percentages, and some have VAT taken out), and dollar amounts coming into the account as well as the date the money will be in the account. The email report is sent on exactly the same date each month, one for US sales, and one for non-US sales; and the monies are in the account on the same date each month. Neither I nor any of my Indie/self-published author friends has ever experienced any problems getting paid, and the number of copies being sold seems to correspond with the rising/lowering ranking #. The longest published author with whom I have contact has had his ebooks out for 3 years and told me he has never had any difficulties with payment.
So, are you basically saying that you think there is a discrepancy with the paper books ordered by Barnes & Noble (a local one, I assume, since you would not have access to B&N corporate ordering) and printed by CS?
When you say that Amazon sees the LSI and Ingram reports but they’re only reported to author/publisher in numbers, do you mean that the Amazon reports does not tell which bookstores the sales come from? LSI would not know that information since it is only a printer: Ingram, as the distributor, would be the only one with that information.
Do you, as a publisher, have an account with Ingram, and pay them for distribution, because I believe that, with CS, there are different distribution options (including the free Amazon-online-only one) and they involve increasing cost (and purchase of ISBNs) with increasing distribution. At least, that’s how I remember the contract, which, I admit, is one of the longest and most convoluted legal publishing documents I’ve ever read, but then, I’m used to the long and convoluted NY-House publishing contracts, which you basically have to take a course to learn to read. Unless you hire an IP attorney to help you through that maze of legalese.
And I’d still like to know how you track daily sales as no company that I have ever dealt with, whether printer or distributor, has daily sales figures available.
I am sorry if you feel that you are not receiving the appropriate amount of monies owed to you by CS & KDP, and do hope that you get it worked out. Please keep the rest of us informed, and thank you for your post.
What publishing house do you work for/operate, Ms. Constantinova? I ask because out of everyone posting here, you are saying completely different things in a very protracted and vehement manner.
You act like there is just no way anyone can reliably track orders…because you don’t get daily reports? Several large orders from multiple authors have just “disappeared” completely, but you maintain that doesn’t mean the author is losing money–how do you figure, exactly? You can talk about a delay all you want, but these orders seem to be significantly in the past, so that excuse looks a lot like misdirection.
Frankly, your aggressive responses look suspicious here, especially since you seem to be the only one who has the information you are claiming to be correct. I would like to know who you are specifically so I (and my author friends) can steer clear of your company. Thank you.
The main reason I use Smashwords is because they seem to be more reliable and at the same time give world wide distribution ( all for free ) they take a minor cut.
Amazon I was finally forced to add some titles there in Kindle because lets face it, they have market share on ebooks.
Tracking sales is always an event and proving sales is even harder
Even on Smashwords , they count on places like Kobo , Barnes and Apple to report to them and thus to you.
General rule of thumb , when a company just sends you form letters when you complain ,, doesn’t want your business
I declined a publishing contract to go indie using CS. Now I’m wondering if I did the right thing, and if I don’t go through CS to get my books on Amazon, who else is there? I’m almost afraid to go with CreateSpace after reading all the comments regarding the possibility they’re withholding royalty payments. Where’s an author to go???
I think it is okay if you know what you are using them for and what you aren’t. I had second thoughts about using them expanded distribution and now use Lightening Source on its own. As an author, another reason to go with a cooperative small press, where you use their name as the imprint, but still have control over everything, including your marketing and promo. That is what AgeView Press is.
Thanks, Jeanette, this gives me some options, at least. I’ve heard of Lightening Source, and it’s all been positive, but not Age View Press. I’ll check them out. Big thanks!
Hello everybody, I found this post looking for some answers as well and found it really helpful. I’m new to the business. Published my first novel, The Blacksmith-Core Secrets on Amazon KDP as ebook. So maybe there are some differences to what you guys were talking about but still… My book has only been available for one week so I haven’t really spent my time tracking the sales, but then I had proof that some people did buy my book. There is also a review on amazon.de. Still, my amazon account insists that ‘there are no sales to report’. I see you’re people with much more experience than me and I would really appreciate your thoughts on this.
It continues to be a problem. Especially with the expanded distribution sales. We need to rally together and have this litigated out. I am reaching out to an attorney on twitter. Will keep you posted. Make sure I have your email address by subsribing to the blog. My email is: jeanettevaughan@ageviewpress.com
Thanks a lot, Jeanette. My email is: anaatcalin@gmail.com.