Kindle Sales Figures via Author Central

bowiefan1970 · Apr 18, 2011

Hey, guys. I'd like info on Kindle sales reports as accessed through Author Central on Amazon. I have found that my sales report fluctuates seemingly at random. No returns are listed and when people tell me on Facebook that they downloaded the book I don't see the sale.
I'd love to hear what you have experienced.

shaldna · Apr 19, 2011

As far as I know you can see your sales on your kdp dashboard. If you click on 'reports' and then you have options for amazon.com and amazon.co.uk and you can select the total sales, units to date or past six weeks, and it shows you all of your titles and the total downloads.

Bear in mind that I've only seen this done once, so others might be able to explain better, but from what I saw, it's through your kdp dashboard that you get your figures for kindle books.

Undercover · Apr 19, 2011

Author Central doesn't show kindle reports only paperback. It says it in the information listed.

johnnysannie · Apr 19, 2011

Author Central will show your rankings for e-books but not sales. Rankings fluctuate all over the place at any time, btw. You might try Novel Rank....they show some sales for ebooks but IMHO they are not always that accurate.

rsullivan9597 · Apr 19, 2011

bowiefan1970 said:
Hey, guys. I'd like info on Kindle sales reports as accessed through Author Central on Amazon. I have found that my sales report fluctuates seemingly at random. No returns are listed and when people tell me on Facebook that they downloaded the book I don't see the sale.
I'd love to hear what you have experienced.

Amazon Central uses Nielson BookScan information that represents only a VERY small portion of print sales made. It won't show you ebooks.

I you are self-published - you can use the Kindle Digital Platform - and that is accurate - it updates constantly (not per hour like rankings). I've been on it and pressed the "report" button within a few seconds of the previous push and seen the numbers change. Of course to see this kind of "updating" you have to be selling a ton of book.

bowiefan1970 · Apr 19, 2011

Guys, I'm able to see my sales. That isn't the problem. I'm saying that they fluctuate without any returns noted. Also, as I said, people tell me they purchased the book and my sales don't reflect that.

rugcat · Apr 19, 2011

rsullivan9597 said:
Amazon Central uses Nielson BookScan information that represents only a VERY small portion of print sales made. It won't show you ebooks.

Bookscan numbers, as compared to actual royalty statements vetted by many authors, consistently reflect anywhere from 70-80% of print book sales, depending on genre.

shaldna · Apr 20, 2011

bowiefan1970 said:
Guys, I'm able to see my sales. That isn't the problem. I'm saying that they fluctuate without any returns noted.

Sales shouldn't flutuate, they should only stay the same or go up.

Book ranking fluctuate wildly though.

Also, as I said, people tell me they purchased the book and my sales don't reflect that.

Maybe they didn't and didn't want to say.

If you have any questions you should email amazon, they've been quite good in the past about answering queries for me.

rsullivan9597 · Apr 20, 2011

bowiefan1970 said:
Guys, I'm able to see my sales. That isn't the problem. I'm saying that they fluctuate without any returns noted. Also, as I said, people tell me they purchased the book and my sales don't reflect that.

By fluctuate I assume you mean go down. - I've not seen this. PubIt was "messed up" awhile back and the sales numbers were totally off. I've not seen any discrepencies in data reported by DTP.

Rankings of course fluctuate regardless of whether or not you make a sale, as it represents other books in relation to yours. Those are updated once an hour - and are heavily wighted to "recent" orders.

bowiefan1970 · Apr 20, 2011

shaldna said:
Sales shouldn't flutuate, they should only stay the same or go up.

Book ranking fluctuate wildly though.

Maybe they didn't and didn't want to say.

If you have any questions you should email amazon, they've been quite good in the past about answering queries for me.

I hear you on the fluctuating ranking. I'm aware of that. As far as people saying they are buying when they aren't. I'm only talking about one person, since my book just came up on Kindle. She is my cousin and I don't think she'd lie to me about a .99 purchase. That is a valid thought, though.

Kindle Sales Figures via Author Central

bowiefan1970

shaldna

The cake is a lie. But still cake.

Undercover

I got it covered

johnnysannie

rsullivan9597

bowiefan1970

rugcat

Lost in the Fog

shaldna

The cake is a lie. But still cake.

rsullivan9597

bowiefan1970