Bit of Advice?

Hi guys,

Would anyone be able to advise me about royalties? Specifically, how, and how often do publishers collect the sales royalties from the various online places books are retailed? These days books sell on retail sites from all over the world, and I'm wondering how my figures are collated. I know my book has been selling on Ebay, various Amazon sites and WHSmith as well as in paperback form from Waterstones in the UK. Is there some piece of centralised software that can track all of that, and if so, how often do the big retailers like Amazon pay publishers?

My publisher only releases royalty reports twice a year, and they are nearly a year behind actual sales, so any book I sell today won't appear on a report until June next year. As Nature Mage was only published last September, I've only seen one royalty report, detailing sales from September to November 2011. As I only started selling books in January, this leaves me fairly blind, and would really appreciate some clarity.

Many thanks in advance to the kind soul who answers this.

My best,

Duncan

Royalties is a common difficulty for authors. I get my royalty check quarterly and it details each retail outlet where the books were sold and my share of the royalties. I think I am lucky as all publishers are not so frequent with royalties or so detailed.

Author Central at Amazon does track sales on Amazon.com of print books.

Check your contract.

Thanks DK. I hope I get the kind of detail you're talking about on the report itself. I'm still hoping for further information, but that's very helpful.

Al, my contract doesn't offer this detail. I'd be unlikely to ask these questions if it did.

This might help you, Duncan:

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Thanks Shelagh. That explains some of the calculations involved. I'm still wondering how often Amazon pay publishers. That's the biggest piece of the jigsaw that's missing.

Here are the KDP terms for royalties:

How long does it take to get paid royalties for sales?
Your royalties will accrue separately for each amazon marketplace. For example, amazon.co.uk sales will accrue separately from amazon.com sales. The balance of each account will be paid sixty days after the end of a month in which the balance accrued at least $10/£10/€10 for Electronic funds transfer or $100/£100/€100 for payments by check.

I have never received pay from Amazon.com for my Kindle books. I have been fighting with them for years. They have made it impossible by claiming the payments went to my bank and my bank claiming they did not receive any payments. They will provide no human being that follows through - it's always passed somewhere else. It's not a lot of money as it's my self-published kindles (three actually) that sell for $2.99, $2.99 and $.99 .

Thanks Shelagh that's really useful. Dk that is awful! surely there is something you can do?

That is horrible DK, I hope you get that remedied!! Have you tried pulling the books and republishing perhaps with a different bank. I know that sounds silly but perhaps there is a conflict with the bank rounting number you are using...just a thought.