PSA Announcement. (My goof!)

Calle Jay · Aug 1, 2013

Was checking royalties, etc. last night on Amazon and realized I'd really screwed up. When I'd put one of my books on sale a few months ago I'd dropped to the 35% royalty rate. When I took it off of the sale price...I forgot to raise the royalty rate back to 70%.

Back then it wasn't much of a deal, but now the book is selling really well, and I cost myself close to 400$ this month.

So, public service announcement--check your royalty rates occasionally! Just to be on the safe side!

merrihiatt · Aug 1, 2013

Wise advice. I'd also add to check that your bank info. is current a few weeks before royalties are paid. One time mine had reset to blank spaces. It only happened once and I was alerted by a post on the KDP boards that it had happened to another author, so I checked mine. Sure enough, my bank info. was missing. If I hadn't noticed, I wouldn't have received my royalty payment that month.

Mclesh · Aug 1, 2013

Thanks for the warning, Calle. My book is on sale right now. I'll be sure to take care of that.

I do have a question, though, since you wrote this. If a book is eligible because of the price to have a 70% royalty rate, why would anyone ever choose to stay with the 35% rate? I mean, is there any reason to do that? Any benefit? Just wondering.

merrihiatt · Aug 1, 2013

Mclesh said:
Thanks for the warning, Calle. My book is on sale right now. I'll be sure to take care of that.

I do have a question, though, since you wrote this. If a book is eligible because of the price to have a 70% royalty rate, why would anyone ever choose to stay with the 35% rate? I mean, is there any reason to do that? Any benefit? Just wondering.

If the book has a lot of photos, it can cost a lot for the download fee. At 35% royalty, there is no download fee. My books only have a few images and I think it costs eight or nine cents per download.

Calle Jay · Aug 1, 2013

Other than the photos, I can't think of a benefit. I mean, this one little oops on my part cost 390$ or so this month.

Merri, I'll check my bank info! I just changed it last week anyway; I'd hate for it to blank out!

Mclesh · Aug 1, 2013

merrihiatt said:
If the book has a lot of photos, it can cost a lot for the download fee. At 35% royalty, there is no download fee. My books only have a few images and I think it costs eight or nine cents per download.

Ah. Okay. This isn't something I was familiar with. So a cookbook, or something like that. Thanks for telling me, Merri!

Sorry about your costly mistake, Calle, but thanks again for the warning!

merrihiatt · Aug 1, 2013

Exactly. I have a few short stories that I price at $.99 cents. I add images of all my other books in the back, along with descriptions, because the royalty rate is 35%. The images make the file very large, but it doesn't matter because there is no download fee.

Torgo · Aug 1, 2013

So if you put your book on sale, the royalty drops automatically, but doesn't revert to the normal level automatically when you take it off sale?

Calle Jay · Aug 1, 2013

Torgo,
That's what happened, I think. When you go in and change the price for the sale on KDP (in my case, I put it at $.99 the month before the next in the series was to come out), you have to select the royalty rate.

Anything under $2.99 you have to check 35%. But when you go back in to readjust later, anything over $2.99 you can choose between the 35% an 70%. I forgot to change the default 35%, so was actually getting 35% of the $3.99 regular price, rather than the 70% it was eligible for. Thankfully the rest of the books on my bookshelf were correctly entered, so I didn't lose out on them, too.

Sure felt sick when I saw that!

Ann Joyce · Aug 1, 2013

I'm so sorry for your very expensive lesson, Callie. Thanks for giving the rest of us a heads up. There are so many things to learn.

Torgo · Aug 1, 2013

Calle Jay said:
Torgo,
That's what happened, I think. When you go in and change the price for the sale on KDP (in my case, I put it at $.99 the month before the next in the series was to come out), you have to select the royalty rate.

Anything under $2.99 you have to check 35%. But when you go back in to readjust later, anything over $2.99 you can choose between the 35% an 70%. I forgot to change the default 35%, so was actually getting 35% of the $3.99 regular price, rather than the 70% it was eligible for. Thankfully the rest of the books on my bookshelf were correctly entered, so I didn't lose out on them, too.

Sure felt sick when I saw that!

This feels like one of those suboptimal web design decisions that turn out to benefit the designer!

Ann Joyce · Aug 1, 2013

Good to know to keep an eye on our bank info and the added costs of downloads in books over .99 containing images. Thanks, Merri

Calle Jay · Aug 1, 2013

Torgo said:
This feels like one of those suboptimal web design decisions that turn out to benefit the designer!

Funny. I had the same thought...

PSA Announcement. (My goof!)

Calle Jay

Romance Novelist & Freelance Editor

merrihiatt

Writing! Writing! Writing!

Mclesh

It's too hot

merrihiatt

Writing! Writing! Writing!

Calle Jay

Romance Novelist & Freelance Editor

Mclesh

It's too hot

merrihiatt

Writing! Writing! Writing!

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.

Calle Jay

Romance Novelist & Freelance Editor

Ann Joyce

It's all about grace

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.

Ann Joyce

It's all about grace

Calle Jay

Romance Novelist & Freelance Editor