KDP Select audit - boilerplate literary contract - your share of 500K - jet lag

[Mike McIntyre]

In the old days there was boilerplate language in literary contracts regarding the author's right to audit royalties. Do authors who opt into KDP Select enjoy a similar mechanism? (e.g., If Amazon is off by more than 5%, they pay the difference, plus the legal expenses of the audit; if less, you pay the accountant's bill.) I searched for this but could not find the answer. I'm jet lagged though.

[Terrence OBrien]

I read it and saw nothing like that.

[Mike McIntyre]

so how do you know if you got your fair share of the 500K? Or the $6 million? Or if such sums exist?

[Krista D. Ball]

How dare you question Amazon?

[Mike McIntyre]

How dare you question Amazon?

A benevolent dictator is still a dictator.

[Krista D. Ball]

A benevolent dictator is still a dictator.

THE HORROR

[Terrence OBrien]

"so how do you know if you got your fair share of the 500K? Or the $6 million? Or if such sums exist?"

You don't.

[JRTomlin]

so how do you know if you got your fair share of the 500K? Or the $6 million? Or if such sums exist?

How do you know they really sold the number of downloads they show in KDP?

That would make more sense for them to lie about.

They said the pot will be $500,000 however many slices it is cut into. They wouldn't save money by jiggering that. If they were going to steal from us it would be showing fewer regular sales than happen.

And no, I'm not worried that they are although I probably should considering how often authors are ripped off by other publishers.

Edit: Whether such sums exist? So you really suspect that Amazon can't come up with $500K?     

Well, if it doesn't exist, I think we'll notice when no one gets any money, won't we?

[Gordon Ryan]

One auditable rule of thumb with the old trad publishers was the remaining inventory. No such animal exists with ebooks.  With fairly good sales at Amazon and virtually none at most of the other outlets (distributed through SW) I have long wondered about sales without reporting. We will never know, actually.  But if it is occurring, one day there will be a great awakening scandal. 

Meanwhile, "trust but verify," as our former president said. The problem is, how do we verify?

Answer given above: we don't.

GR

[meromana]

Well, it's far from perfect verification, but Amazon knows that any of us could buy our own books or have friends and relatives buy them, and then see if at least that many sales show up for the given day.  That is probably the one and only way we have to do some verification.  Of course, it woudn't be practical for books that sell hundreds of copies a day...

--Maria