Is it just me or are sales not being reported for everyone?

[Terrence OBrien]

All Amazon has to do is get the monthly sales and payments right. The daily KDP stuff isn't necessary. It's just a nice convenience for suppliers.

[Shelagh]

Sorry, Shelagh, I knew that but wrote sales in my note. I should have known since few (if any) of my books have had #60,000 sales, but several are ranked that high.  LOL

GR

Gosh, Gordon, sales of some of my books would be selling 250,000+! Still, low sales don't cause the angst that some of the authors here are experiencing; there is joy in every sale for us low rankers!

[LB Gschwandtner]

So fyi everyone. Here's a copy of my email to amazon & a reply tonight. The reply is at the top so my email is below that.
p.s. as expected not any specific info herein.

Hello Laura,

We're currently experiencing a reporting issue that has caused errors in the display of your February sales information on our KDP site. Our engineers are working to resolve this as soon as possible and expect the reports to be corrected next week.

Please be assured all your sales are being recorded accurately, however there seems to be an error with it updating on your KDP account.

We're sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, and appreciate your patience and understanding.

============================================
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A29KVOXOQK88N5&k=hy

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---- Original message: ----

Publisher Code: AVXH0I7FQ45PI
Customer Name: Laura B Gschwandtner
Subject: wonkiness on Amazon

Hi: All the Indie authors are wondering what's going on with sales, Free Promo downloads, rankings & general wonkiness with Amazon's numbers since midnight Jan 31.

Any answers?

For instance, I've been running a free promo for Megan's New Year (Kindle ed) for Wed & Thurs this week (so now).
Yesterday it showed 41 downloads for over 16 hours but the ranking overall said 399.
Now it shows 1577 downloads but the book is ranked # 41 in the top 100. Which is not possible with that few downloads.

Having done this before I have seen what #s are required to get near the top 100 and these don't do it.

Others are reporting sales disappearing, rankings all over the place, and general disarray @ Amazon.

Anyway I'd love to hear what to expect about corrections of these numbers & sales.

[Gordon Ryan]

LB, now that's a general answer, but clearly an answer which displays that they understand there is a problem, even if they don't define what it is and how to correct it.  But it appears that another week will be required to correct it.  Continue waiting and seeing, I suppose.

Thanks for sharing with us.

GR

[Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake']

Thanks for posting Amazon's answer, Laura. Sounds like all the problems aren't resolved yet.

I've had decent sales of my Select books and no sales of my non-select books. Maybe all my sales are being reported and maybe not. I'm trying not to hope for a rush of sales when the reporting catches up because I think most of my sales are actually registering.

[LB Gschwandtner]

One last report on this:
Today Amzn sent me yet another email saying they're still working on it but this one was so generic nobody signed it.

AND ... sometime in the last hour a huge glob of #s showed in my sales results. One book that had a free promo on 2/1 jumped from 4600 to 10200. Really tough to figure out sales vs. freebies in that.

Others with no freebies also showed sales jumps.

So amzn is working out the kinks I guess.

[MichaelWallace]

All Amazon has to do is get the monthly sales and payments right. The daily KDP stuff isn't necessary. It's just a nice convenience for suppliers.

That's my thinking, too. Given that I haven't been paid yet for October or November, a few delayed sales is the least of my worries. 

[Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake']

I couldn't check my sales for a couple of hours and came home to 14 sales of one book, but my ranking, which has been hovering in the high teens, is now in the high 20's. It just doesn't make sense.

I guess I just need to be patient, but it's hard when I have another two day free run starting tomorrow.

[Mike McIntyre]

AND ... sometime in the last hour a huge glob of #s showed in my sales results. One book that had a free promo on 2/1 jumped from 4600 to 10200. Really tough to figure out sales vs. freebies in that.

This just happened to me, too.

[ToniD]

My missing Feb1 sales showed up, too. Whew.

Michael, that's terrible that they haven't paid you for those months. Any explanation?

[lewaters]

I didn't have any sales for the last couple of days and then I suddenly had 12. My rank does not improve with sales. I thought it was just a dry spell so at least it was nice to see that there must be a glitch effecting sales and rankings. I hope they fix this soon.

[D a l y a]

My sales/downloads on 1 book shot up by 450 today.  I did a free promo on Feb 6th, so I've no idea if these were freebies or some sales.

[JRTomlin]

I also just had a jump in sales and yet no increase in ranking. Perhaps they were sales from when there were glitches that were already shown in the rankings? Or else rankings are being very, very slow to adjust. Not sure what's going on.

[Terrence OBrien]

If the sales are from Feb1, there is little chance they would affect today's rankings.

[Kathleen Valentine]

Everything makes so much more sense now....................

[Gordon Ryan]

Had the same result today, with several hundred additional downloads on a book that was free early in Feb. I just lumped those numbers in with the pittance reported on Feb 1 & 2, counting them as freebies. If any are sales, it will be a surprise with the weekly summary.  So, perhaps it is becoming safe to enter the water again (list a new freebie) since the sharks have been tamed.

GR

[D a l y a]

... perhaps it is becoming safe to enter the water again (list a new freebie) since the sharks have been tamed.

GR

WHAT?!  No, it is never safe!  In KDPSelect, it is always an exciting avalanche or crushing disappointment or soaring victory or somewhat acceptable semi-defeat.  There is no safe.

[Steve Silkin]

Had the same result today, with several hundred additional downloads on a book that was free early in Feb.

Same here. If I hadn't seen this thread, I would've thought I'd hit the big time!!  

(I'm really glad I saw this thread before I'd seen the added numbers. It would've been an awful disappointment when reality set in.)

[Gordon Ryan]

Same here. If I hadn't seen this thread, I would've thought I'd hit the big time!! 

(I'm really glad I saw this thread before I'd seen the added numbers. It would've been an awful disappointment when reality set in.)

As Dalya has inferred, there is no reality, only ups and downs.  Good luck in-between. 

GR

[ChristinePope]

Grr. This is so frustrating. And it's going to be a long wait until Sunday to find out if any of those sales were paid or not (my book was free on February 4th).

[cidneyswanson]

Just adding to the consensus that sales are showing up today which happened . . . ago. I "sold" twice as many titles today as yesterday, but dropped a gut-wrenching 1000 places in the rankings. So, naturally I came to Kindleboards to find out what, exactly, was wrong with my picture!

Ah, well.
Cidney

[portiadacosta]

I too had a big jump in 'sales' for my Select title that was free on 1/2/3 of Feb. I assumed it was just the missing downloads from 1st Feb, when there were barely any. I never really look at my rankings [don't need another reason to weep/gnash teeth] so don't know whether they've changed or not. 

[India Drummond]

Had the same result today, with several hundred additional downloads on a book that was free early in Feb. I just lumped those numbers in with the pittance reported on Feb 1 & 2, counting them as freebies. If any are sales, it will be a surprise with the weekly summary.  So, perhaps it is becoming safe to enter the water again (list a new freebie) since the sharks have been tamed.

GR

Same here. My novel Ordinary Angels was free Mon and Tues this week and I gave away 14,500 copies, even making the top #10 for overall Kindle freebies in the US and the UK and #1 in my genre. Today I wake up to find that Wed overnight I supposedly had 1100 sales. *blink* On a book that usually sells 100-200 copies PER MONTH. But my sales rank sure doesn't reflect that many sales (#4200 Kindle / #97 Fantasy Romance--no doubt 1100 sales in 8 hours would put me a tad higher on the bestseller list.)

My guess is that all but about 15 or 20 of those were freebies that for some reason didn't get registered until Wed night. Of course I'd like to have sold 1100 books in one day, but I suspect something wonky has gone on behind the scenes.

On the plus side, I have noticed the sales of my other books have normalised--they'd tanked in the past 10 days. Now they're back at least to pre-Christmas numbers, which is a relief.

[LB Gschwandtner]

Not to worry, everyone. The great news is someone in ITALY bought one of my titles.

I take that as an omen. We ARE approaching the Ides, y'know.

[Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake']

Not to worry, everyone. The great news is someone in ITALY bought one of my titles.

I take that as an omen. We ARE approaching the Ides, y'know.

Bought it? You mean paid actual Euros for it? I haven't even been able to crack IT with a free book. Congratulations. That's awesome.