Outside sales flatline

Rhianwaller · January 3

Hi everyone - have any of you been experiencing a flatline in your sales reports? Normally, other outlets (Amazon, Ingram, etc) will have updated their sales by now, but I've had a month-long flatline on sales.

This is odd, as I know there have been Christmas purchases, and I also had some volunteers order free copies to test (these should show up as non-profit sales). Is there typically a delay over the holiday season?

oncewas · January 3

The print book sales report is usually available on the 5 th working day following month end, and ebooks sales on the 7 th working day. You won't see the December Amazon sales until the report you get in early March. Amazon pays 60 days after the end of the month in which the sale occurred so December sales will be paid at the end of February and you will get the sales report in early March.

Rhianwaller · January 3

Okay, great. So it's likely this is down to bank holidays/etc.

oncewas · January 3

No, it is not down to holidays. This is the usual state of affairs. There is nothing out of the ordinary. Your Amazon sales will always be reported in the way I have outlined and although sometimes the Lulu reports are early the default position is 5 th working day for print and 7 th working day for ebooks.

Seamus · January 3

Thanks for bringing that up, This was my first month with only one sale, and a bookstore even told me they had made an Ingram order. I started to think maybe my book has completed it's run, time to move on...

Rhianwaller · January 4

oncewas said:

No, it is not down to holidays. This is the usual state of affairs. There is nothing out of the ordinary. Your Amazon sales will always be reported in the way I have outlined and although sometimes the Lulu reports are early the default position is 5 th working day for print and 7 th working day for ebooks.

Well, my sales are usually reported on the last day of the month, in bulk. None of my sales records show accumulated sales figures from the fifth/seventh working day.

Rhianwaller · January 4

Are we perhaps talking at cross purposes?

HULSEY · January 4

The sales reports for my ebooks, including Kindle usually come in about the 7th of the month and the print books a day or two later. I received my sales as usual in December and everything seems normal so far.

Rhianwaller · January 4

Could this be a territory-specific thing? Or do sales reports arrive back-dated? My sales peaks do not marry up with the dates stated above; as I said, the reports seem to come in toward the end of the month for me.

It just seems very unlikely I had no "sales" for a month, as Lulu counts free downloads, and at least some of those occurred because of reviews.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6030295/uploads/editor/rv/wvdyzedxr24a.png

Paul_Lulu · January 4

We receive monthly reports from distributors (Amazon, Ingram, B&N, Apple, etc.) but they don't always come at exactly the same date, and can be held up for any number of reasons (holidays, technical issues).

We do back date the sales dates and numbers when they come in.

For example, if you sold 10 books on Amazon in December, we would receive a report at the end of January (approximately) with those figures. Based on the data Amazon provides, we date those sales in your Lulu dashboard and mark the sales for payout. That payment would be scheduled for either middle or end of January (for PayPal).

oncewas · January 4

Paul said

For example, if you sold 10 books on Amazon in December, we would receive a report at the end of January (approximately) with those figures. Based on the data Amazon provides, we date those sales in your Lulu dashboard and mark the sales for payout. That payment would be scheduled for either middle or end of January (for PayPal).

Pail - When I sell on Amazon I see my December sales report in December but the money for those sales does not go into my bank account until the end of February. Amazon pays 60 days after the month in which the sale occurred. I would expect the December sales to be in the report that Lulu gets at the end of February and which Lulu reports on the fifth working day of March and pays out on the 17 th of March. I can't see that Amazon would pay affiliates before it pays its own authors.

I switched from Createspace to KDP in the first week of September. The only money paid into my bank account at the end of October was for the first week of September (while with Creatspace) . I had to wait until the end of November to receive the rest of the money for sales in September (which were with KDP). I therefore do not understand your explanation.

Paul_Lulu · January 4

I don't know Amazon's KDP/CreateSpace reporting schedule myself, but I do know they report to us monthly. Our payouts generally occur 6-8 weeks after a sale as well, so it seems like the schedules are pretty closely synced.

I'm not sure I can state it any more clearly than I have above.

Edit: rereading your response, you're talking about sales through KDP/CreateSpace, which are not related to sales of Lulu books on Amazon. They way Amazon pays out for sales from a different provider doesn't impact our reporting agreement or payment schedule.

oncewas · January 4

Paul - The reason I mentioned Amazon / KDP is because I wanted to back up the fact that Amazon pays out 60 days after the month in which the sale occurred.

I do not, for a moment, believe that Amazon would pay the authors who publish on Amazon via Lulu before they pay their own authors. You might get a sales report once a month but it is important for people to understand what these sales report reference. It would help all those people who know they have made a sale but don't get a report. It would also hep Lulu authors who publish on Amazon to understand the various sales patterns relating to books. People who think they are going to see their Christmas sales in January will be very disappointed

Paul_Lulu · January 4

Paul_Lulu said:
For example, if you sold 10 books on Amazon in December, we would receive a report at the end of January (approximately) with those figures.

I'm not sure it can be any clearer. We receive the report at the end of the month for the proceeding month. We post very shortly after receiving the report (usually a couple business days, sometimes same day).

I will note that retailers are ALLOWED longer to pay, technically up to 160 days I believe. But in practice that only ever happens if there is a technical issue with specific books or accounts.

Again, this has nothing to do with Amazon's payment scheduling for other platforms.

Rhianwaller · January 4

Paul - my confusion might be due to the backdating process. That makes sense. Thank you.

Seamus · January 6

YAHH! Ingram and Amazon posted just like you said they would. And I sold two print copies on Ingram for an income of .64 cents! wow, they make Amazon look good. But I know that those two copies went onto a shelf in a bookstore, so that's exciting to me.

TheJesusNinja · January 6

If I am correct Lulu also pays an estimated amount to us before Amazon pays them? Which might be different than selling on Amazon directly. If that is the case I had a terrible Christmas report. This report is the worst I've had in over a year. Strange considering Dec is usually best selling month.

HULSEY · January 6

My December sales report was also low, but this has been the case the last three or four years. Nowadays, I expect a meagre return at Christmas.

TheJesusNinja · January 6

That is strange as most people I study and communicate with online had a great report last month. Two years ago my sales tripled. The last year they were either average or lower. One of the major problems is getting our books found on Amazon. Lulu does not send our keywords and Amazon puts our books wherever they think they should go but no keywords. Up until now Amazon has worked with me to add those but the last two months I've gotten turned down by the KDP. Createspace was much more helpful. But I hear from lulu that this is being worked on in the future which might help with our sales.

Outside sales flatline

Comments