Beyond Bookscan

My Royalty Statement is Here!

When I published my first novel, I received sales numbers six weeks after the launch of my debut. This is about the time that authors should ask their agent to request early sales numbers, and hopefully the editor will provide them, though it’s not always guaranteed.

According to an email from my editor in March of 2022, at six weeks past pub date of my debut I’d sold 3246 copies (1948 sold in print, 1048 in e-books and 1066 audiobooks).They had distributed 12,791 copies and had another 9753 in inventory. My editor in the email called the audio sales “remarkable,” but later, when I asked her on a phone call whether or not she was pleased with overall numbers, she said something to the effect of “I’m neither pleased nor displeased.” (insert winky emoji here because I also had no idea what this meant except that maybe it’s all just a big mystery to everyone–including the editors–so they’ve learned to accept that whatever will be).

After those six-week numbers, I had no idea how the novel was selling. The conventional wisdom is that most sales happen within the first three months after pub date, but there are MANY exceptions to this rule–just check out Taylor Jenkins Reid and her fabulous The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or even, or as of this week, Jesse Q Sutanto’s recent announcement about Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers hitting the USA Today bestseller list almost a year after pub date. 

Authors sometimes have access to sales portals, with accuracy varying based on the publisher and the source of their data. The definitive numbers come from royalty statements which usually go out to the author 2-4X a year. My publisher, MIRA, is on a quarterly schedule, so four times a year I receive an update on how many copies I’ve sold in audio, ebook, and trade paperback. (I haven’t been published in hardcover.)

MIRA seems to get its portal sales numbers from Bookscan, which calls itself “the gold standard in POS tracking for the publishing market. It covers approximately 85 percent of trade print books sold in the U.S., through direct reporting from all major retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, independent bookstores, and many others.” Let’s see how Bookscan’s claim holds up.

According to Bookscan, I’ve sold…

• 2,907 copies of my debut, The Night She Went Missing (TNSWM), which published on Feb 8, 2022

• 3,436 copies of I Love It When You Lie (ILIWYL), which published on March 14, 2023. 

Now let’s see what my royalty statement, which I received this morning, says:

From pub date through Sept 23, 2023 I’ve sold…

• 22,738 copies of TNSWM. Here’s the breakdown:

  • 3,246 ebook

  • 7,246 trade paperback

  • 12,111 audio

  • 135 “AM” (I don’t know what this means, but I think it’s some kind of direct sales from in-house or advanced copies? If anyone knows, feel free to reach out!)

• 15,234 copies of I Love It When You Lie (ILIWYL). Here’s the breakdown:

  • 1,375 ebook

  • 11,500 trade paperback

  • 2,247 audio

  • 112 “AM”

As a midlister, I’m proud of those numbers, especially the fact that I’ve sold more trade paperback of ILIWYL, and it published a year after TNSWM. I’m also hopeful that, along with some recent audible and ebook deals as well as WATCH IT BURN publishing in March, I may actually earn out on both books on my next royalty statement. My current “unearned” position is $714.08 with ILIWYL and $1,021.62 with TNSWM.( More on why in a later post.)

So, why the vast difference between Bookscan and royalty statements? Here are my speculations:

1. Royalty statements show units shipped to retailers, not necessarily units sold to individual readers. There’s this weird thing in publishing in which retailers can ship unsold books back to the publisher for a refund (or, in the case of mass market paperbacks, they don’t even need to ship them. They just rip off the cover–I KNOW!!!) and send that back for a refund. That’s why–unless you’re a breakout success–it’s important to wait until the royalty statement that arrives 6-12 months after publication to ensure that the numbers you are seeing are ‘real.’ I’m there with TNSWM, and just at 6 months reporting after the launch of Book 2.

2. My imprint, MIRA, is under the umbrella of Harlequin, which is under the umbrella of HarperCollins. Because of that, they have a pretty good salesforce in both the US and Canada. Bookscan is only reporting US numbers.

3. Bookscan only counts print books sold–it’s not counting digital or audio, the latter which has been a steadily increasing market for years. That said, based on the numbers above, I do have a hard time believing that Bookscan is actually counting 85% of my print books sold in the US. I would estimate it more around 50-70%, though this is entirely conjecture.

4. Bookscan doesn’t count libraries, and I’ve been pleased to see my books on many library websites.

Above are a few reasons I’ve come up with, but if you have ideas, I’d love to hear them. 

Two quick notes: 

1. I’ve changed the name of this substack from “How I Succeeded/Failed at Publishing” to “Print Runs & Paychecks.” Just sounds jazzier, and I’m new at this, why not?

2. I plan on this substack remaining FREE for a LONG time, but if you’d like to support a midlister, please consider preordering WATCH IT BURN. It’s $18.99, and goes towards a good cause (feeding, clothing, and housing my rapidly growing three kids ;)). Here’s the Amazon link and here’s the link to my favorite indie bookstore, Murder by the Book, where you can order a signed and/or personalized copy.

Also, a disclaimer: it’s surprisingly challenging to find reliable info on royalty statements. I found one 2018 post on the blog “Adventures in Agentland” that I thought really helpful, and I’m pretty sure that even though it’s been a few years, most, if not all, of this information doesn’t change.