Print sales flatlined since demise of CreateSpace

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

I usually had at least one print sale per month through CreateSpace, but since the move to Amazon I haven't had a single print sale. 
Anyone else notice a drop in sales?

[littleauthor]

Have you checked your metadata? Keywords, markets, even categories were borked for me after the change over. I fixed 5 titles and have about 12 more to go but because each 'fix' has returned cover adjustments needed before publishing, I'm ignoring until I have time to devote to correcting everything.

No sales on the borked titles but sales have come through on the corrected titles. There's a long thread about sales dropping dead after the switch over in the KDP forum.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Thanks. Do you know where the thread is?
I'm worried about making any changes because if they say the cover is incorrect I'll have to get the cover artist to adjust it (and pay for it  )

I haven't been able to link at least one of my titles to the ebook because I made an error in the print book title by missing out a space after 'Droll,' in the title.

Paperback : But Can You Drink The Water? (Droll,witty and utterly British)
Kindle:        But Can You Drink The Water? (Droll, witty and utterly British)

I was going by the maxim ' if it ain't broke don't fix it' but if it's losing me sales I guess I'll have to check all the books and their details. Ho hum.

[Bill Hiatt]

I've never sold a huge number of paperbacks, but I've continued to see sales after the transition. Maybe I was lucky and didn't have metadata problems. Like you, Jan, I was in the "at least one copy a month" club.

By the way, if your cover artist charges to make minor adjustments, unless you are absolutely in love with what he or she produces, it might be wise to shop around a little the next time you start a series. I've worked with two people, both of whom have made minor adjustments for me for free. (I suspect that might change if I needed a huge number, but for someone who has the original files, making a minor size change doesn't seem to take long, suggesting that it may not be that much work.

[littleauthor]

Hi Jan,

Here's a couple of links. One is quite long, covering print and ebook sales drops. I believe Notjohn also had a thread in KB WC on the subject of missing metadata.

https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/question/0D5f400000o2CoRCAU/anyone-else-missing-sales-on-their-reports-and-in-royalties?language=en_US

https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/question/0D5f400001Gtc4jCAB/paperback-sales-completely-stopped?language=en_US

[Post-Crisis D]

By the way, if your cover artist charges to make minor adjustments, unless you are absolutely in love with what he or she produces, it might be wise to shop around a little the next time you start a series. I've worked with two people, both of whom have made minor adjustments for me for free. (I suspect that might change if I needed a huge number, but for someone who has the original files, making a minor size change doesn't seem to take long, suggesting that it may not be that much work.

It's still work and it's time they would have to spend not working on another paying client's job.  It's one thing if the revision is taking place during the initial design period, because many designers will include (and factor in) a certain number of revisions into their initial fee.  Or if the revision is required because the designer made an error.

But if it's a revision requested months (or years later) or if it's a revision from the original specifications, those things should be chargeable changes.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Hi Jan,

Here's a couple of links. One is quite long, covering print and ebook sales drops. I believe Notjohn also had a thread in KB WC on the subject of missing metadata.

https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/question/0D5f400000o2CoRCAU/anyone-else-missing-sales-on-their-reports-and-in-royalties?language=en_US

https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/question/0D5f400001Gtc4jCAB/paperback-sales-completely-stopped?language=en_US

Thanks. I'll check these out.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

By the way, if your cover artist charges to make minor adjustments, unless you are absolutely in love with what he or she produces, it might be wise to shop around a little the next time you start a series. I've worked with two people, both of whom have made minor adjustments for me for free. (I suspect that might change if I needed a huge number, but for someone who has the original files, making a minor size change doesn't seem to take long, suggesting that it may not be that much work.

It's still work and it's time they would have to spend not working on another paying client's job.  It's one thing if the revision is taking place during the initial design period, because many designers will include (and factor in) a certain number of revisions into their initial fee.  Or if the revision is required because the designer made an error.

But if it's a revision requested months (or years later) or if it's a revision from the original specifications, those things should be chargeable changes.

Yes, it's a number of years since the cover was first done. My cover artist is not flush with money and I wouldn't like to ask her to make changes and not pay for them. 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

I've lost confidence in Amazon reporting. I don't sell many Kindle books, so when I get a sale the ranking shoots up. I had a sale a couple of weeks ago and the ranking didn't change at all. About a week previously the ranking on another book shot up by about a million, but there were no sales or page reads. I know readers download but don't get round to reading the book, but having seen a sale and no change in ranking it's made me suspicious of all the reports.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

I've changed the details on my Kindle books to match those of the print books rather than the other way around  I'll see if I can now match the print and Kindle copies.

I have been using Janet Hurst-Nicholson for my children's books and Jan Hurst-Nicholson for the others, but I had a problem with author central recognising that they were all my books. I hope I don't have to go back to sorting that problem out!

[Dustin Porta]

My paperback sales have gone up.

You can run AMS ads on paperbacks now.

[Bill Hiatt]

By the way, if your cover artist charges to make minor adjustments, unless you are absolutely in love with what he or she produces, it might be wise to shop around a little the next time you start a series. I've worked with two people, both of whom have made minor adjustments for me for free. (I suspect that might change if I needed a huge number, but for someone who has the original files, making a minor size change doesn't seem to take long, suggesting that it may not be that much work.

It's still work and it's time they would have to spend not working on another paying client's job.  It's one thing if the revision is taking place during the initial design period, because many designers will include (and factor in) a certain number of revisions into their initial fee.  Or if the revision is required because the designer made an error.

But if it's a revision requested months (or years later) or if it's a revision from the original specifications, those things should be chargeable changes.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to suggest that they shouldn't be chargeable or that there was something wrong with a designer charging for them. I just wanted to point out that there are designers that don't. In the instances I'm thinking of (spine size adjustments caused by a slight change in book length), I offered to pay, but they declined. However, it may also be a factor that, with one of the designers in particular, I've seldom needed to ask for changes after the initial design. If, as you suggest, a certain number of revisions are built into the price, and I normally didn't ask for any, perhaps the designer was considering the change covered by the initial fee.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Have you checked your metadata? Keywords, markets, even categories were borked for me after the change over. I fixed 5 titles and have about 12 more to go but because each 'fix' has returned cover adjustments needed before publishing, I'm ignoring until I have time to devote to correcting everything.

No sales on the borked titles but sales have come through on the corrected titles. There's a long thread about sales dropping dead after the switch over in the KDP forum.

I managed to get the print and ebooks linked via author central's help. I am now going through the data. I've found some categories and keywords missing, and the territories were not listed as 'worldwide' . I'll have to go through them all, but I'll wait to see if it's messed up the cover on the one I've done as I don't want that added problem.

[Bill Hiatt]

I never have understood why the availability morphed between CS and KDP. All of my paperback sales have come from the US, so it probably wouldn't make a difference for me, but it's still bizarre.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

I never have understood why the availability morphed between CS and KDP. All of my paperback sales have come from the US, so it probably wouldn't make a difference for me, but it's still bizarre.

Something is amiss somewhere as I still haven't had any print sales. Not a single one  .

[Bill Hiatt]

I never have understood why the availability morphed between CS and KDP. All of my paperback sales have come from the US, so it probably wouldn't make a difference for me, but it's still bizarre.

Something is amiss somewhere as I still haven't had any print sales. Not a single one  .

Like many glitches, that one is inconsistent. My paperback sales continue at the about the same (low) level.

[123mlh]

I never have understood why the availability morphed between CS and KDP. All of my paperback sales have come from the US, so it probably wouldn't make a difference for me, but it's still bizarre.

Something is amiss somewhere as I still haven't had any print sales. Not a single one  .

I lost all of my EUR sales when I moved over, but they could've made some other change at the same time that drove that like not showing UK sponsored product ads in other European markets. UK and US sales actually improved but I've never been able to get a good explanation as to why I have no sales in EUR-denominated countries when I had a steady number of them before the move. Not a ton, but I think 30 or 40 a month so for it to drop to zero was noticeable.

[Bill Hiatt]

I never have understood why the availability morphed between CS and KDP. All of my paperback sales have come from the US, so it probably wouldn't make a difference for me, but it's still bizarre.

Something is amiss somewhere as I still haven't had any print sales. Not a single one  .

I lost all of my EUR sales when I moved over, but they could've made some other change at the same time that drove that like not showing UK sponsored product ads in other European markets. UK and US sales actually improved but I've never been able to get a good explanation as to why I have no sales in EUR-denominated countries when I had a steady number of them before the move. Not a ton, but I think 30 or 40 a month so for it to drop to zero was noticeable.

Yeah, from 30 or 40 to nothing must indicate something. Did you check to see if the book was actually displaying in the Euro channels. There's not a known bug associated with that, but glitches are sometimes not universal, and that would be one possible explanation.

[123mlh]

I never have understood why the availability morphed between CS and KDP. All of my paperback sales have come from the US, so it probably wouldn't make a difference for me, but it's still bizarre.

Something is amiss somewhere as I still haven't had any print sales. Not a single one  .

I lost all of my EUR sales when I moved over, but they could've made some other change at the same time that drove that like not showing UK sponsored product ads in other European markets. UK and US sales actually improved but I've never been able to get a good explanation as to why I have no sales in EUR-denominated countries when I had a steady number of them before the move. Not a ton, but I think 30 or 40 a month so for it to drop to zero was noticeable.

Yeah, from 30 or 40 to nothing must indicate something. Did you check to see if the book was actually displaying in the Euro channels. There's not a known bug associated with that, but glitches are sometimes not universal, and that would be one possible explanation.

Those sales were across about seven different titles each month, but I didn't check on the channels to see if they're showing there. I suspect it was an issue of the ads I was running in the UK no longer showing for users in those other countries since AMS drives a lot of my sales.

[dgcasey]

I've actually sold more paperbacks since they went over to KDP than when they were with CS.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

I lost all of my EUR sales when I moved over, but they could've made some other change at the same time that drove that like not showing UK sponsored product ads in other European markets. UK and US sales actually improved but I've never been able to get a good explanation as to why I have no sales in EUR-denominated countries when I had a steady number of them before the move. Not a ton, but I think 30 or 40 a month so for it to drop to zero was noticeable.

Have you checked the 'worldwide territories' box?


{Fixed quote. t.}

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

The tag and category changes I made to The Breadwinners seem to have gone through ok and the print book is back as live. I've now updated the tags and categories for the kidnapped mouse (nothing else) but I got a pop up box to say they were checking that everything else was ok, and I don't remember seeing that for The Breadwinners. 

[123mlh]

Have you checked the 'worldwide territories' box?

Yep. When I realized those sales were gone I went through all of my paperbacks and did so, but it didn't fix it. I think the boxes that are checked when a book migrates over are all of the ones that are in fact available for print.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Have you checked the 'worldwide territories' box?

Yep. When I realized those sales were gone I went through all of my paperbacks and did so, but it didn't fix it. I think the boxes that are checked when a book migrates over are all of the ones that are in fact available for print.

I have two Leon Chameleon in a series. One was ticked 'worldwide' the other one was ticked 'selected' territories'.  I've had to change the selected to worldwide. I don't suppose it's going to make any difference to sales.