Sales reporting issues - Anybody else?

[Marti Talbott]

I'm still missing UK sales from April that showed up on the graph. May is almost completely dead except for some Amazon.de sales. I hope it's just a reporting issue and not that my sales suddenly flatlined completely.

I've been round and round with Amazon over month-to-date not matching the graphs, and now the beta being different too. Three times I challenged the reports and only won once. The bottom line seems to be that printing a report daily is the only way to see accurate sales numbers.

I will say that sales habitually slow down at the end of the month and catch up at the beginning of the next month. I don't know why or if that is intentional, but after over 8 years of selling on Amazon, it is a pattern I have noticed.

[Gerri Attrick]

Anyone got their lost sales back, yet?

The answer Fee received from Amazon said they expected things to be back to normal in 2-3 business days. That was on the 1st May, yet here it is the 8th and nothing has changed.

I have a problem with my new release (April 7th) not showing on my UK Amazon page, nor on my Author Central UK page either. They told me, on April 30th, that that would be fixed in 5 days.

I’ve not been so hard hit as some. I “lost” 23 sales in April, and 3 more in May, but I’m hearing of people missing 500 or more. Sheesh.

One thing is certain - Amazon is seriously borked. 

[notthatamanda]

I'm still missing the three I'm missing.  It's awful for people to be missing 500.  That's just terrible.

[Fee]

I feel your pain, guys.  I'm still missing at least 70 sales, so I can't even imagine how frustrating it must be to be missing 500.  I haven't had the heart - or the time - to look into what's going on this month, I just hope the same problem isn't ongoing.  I have a book to get out in the next few days, so I'm going to wait patiently until the reports come out on the 15th. If things still haven't caught up by then I guess I'll just have to write to them again.  That should be fun 

[Marti Talbott]

I just checked and the downloadable sales report for April is 35 books less than total sales in the beta report. Also, I didn't get paid last month for paperback sales. I wonder if that's what's wrong.

[Gerri Attrick]

The prior month’s royalties spreadsheet is up.

One author - down 200 sales - who reported it to Amazon, says her spreadsheet and April’s dashboard now match. Mine don’t. Grumph.

Fee, have you got your lost sales back? If so, then I’m going to have to contact them, too. Maybe they’re only bothering to correct things if you complain.   

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

The prior month’s royalties spreadsheet is up.

One author - down 200 sales - who reported it to Amazon, says her spreadsheet and April’s dashboard now match. Mine don’t. Grumph.

Fee, have you got your lost sales back? If so, then I’m going to have to contact them, too. Maybe they’re only bothering to correct things if you complain.   

I'd just like to compare the $ value that BookReport shows with the $ value on the spreadsheet.
I can't workout sales v page reads 

[Gerri Attrick]

The prior month’s royalties spreadsheet is up.

One author - down 200 sales - who reported it to Amazon, says her spreadsheet and April’s dashboard now match. Mine don’t. Grumph.

Fee, have you got your lost sales back? If so, then I’m going to have to contact them, too. Maybe they’re only bothering to correct things if you complain.   

I’d just like to compare the $ value that BookReport shows with the $ value on the spreadsheet.
I can’t workout sales v page reads 

I’m not in KU, Jan, so I don’t have any page reads.

What we are talking about is a discrepancy - only in the UK, afaik - between the number of units ordered (shown on the dashboard graph) and the number of sales reported on the month to date chart. No Returns are shown, so that doesn’t account for it, and it’s been going on since April 4th in my case - with no acknowledgement of the problem, let alone an explanation for it. At least, not publicly.

[CoraBuhlert]

I still have missing UK sales, too, both on the dashboard and on my April sales report.

[Fee]

Morning everyone.  Sorry to hear I'm not the only one still going through this.

In answer to Gerri Attrick's question, no - I've just checked the downloadable exel report and the month to date for April, and I'm still missing 70 sales.
On the 1st May I took screenshots of all my reports.  Back then, the dashboard said I sold 311 in the UK, and the month to date said I sold 241.

But there's been a stranger twist this morning.  My sales dashboards have been retroactively changed, so that both the old and the shiny new dashboard now say I sold 242 in the UK in the month of April. 
 So yes, you could say that my sales now match up, but only in an alternative reality where I'm happy for a whole bunch of sales  to have mysteriously gone POOF!

I've written to them again (with the screenshots I took showing 311 sales for the UK in April), and I'm wondering what they're going to say.  Maybe they're going to suggest that they originally over-counted?  wouldn't that be hilarious (not).  But they've c*cked up, big-time, as far as I'm concerned, and I think we all deserve a decent explanation.

If they come back to me with an irritating answer, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do.  I'm just little old me, and arguments make me stressy.  Even now I'm thinking it's time for some yoga and a chamomile tea.  But I do think that anyone experiencing the same should get in touch, no matter how irksome it is.  And if you've got screenshots, send them to them as well.

Breathe in ... breathe out ...

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Morning everyone.  Sorry to hear I'm not the only one still going through this.

In answer to Gerri Attrick's question, no - I've just checked the downloadable exel report and the month to date for April, and I'm still missing 70 sales.
On the 1st May I took screenshots of all my reports.  Back then, the dashboard said I sold 311 in the UK, and the month to date said I sold 241.

But there's been a stranger twist this morning.  My sales dashboards have been retroactively changed, so that both the old and the shiny new dashboard now say I sold 242 in the UK in the month of April. 
 So yes, you could say that my sales now match up, but only in an alternative reality where I'm happy for a whole bunch of sales  to have mysteriously gone POOF!

I've written to them again (with the screenshots I took showing 311 sales for the UK in April), and I'm wondering what they're going to say.  Maybe they're going to suggest that they originally over-counted?  wouldn't that be hilarious (not).  But they've c*cked up, big-time, as far as I'm concerned, and I think we all deserve a decent explanation.

If they come back to me with an irritating answer, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do.  I'm just little old me, and arguments make me stressy.  Even now I'm thinking it's time for some yoga and a chamomile tea.  But I do think that anyone experiencing the same should get in touch, no matter how irksome it is.  And if you've got screenshots, send them to them as well.

Breathe in ... breathe out ...

Breathe in Peace, Breathe out Tension 

[Fee]

They got back to me again. Bear in mind, I'd written an incredibly detailed email, included screenshots etc., and addressed the fact the the missing UK sales have now been retroactively removed from my dashboard.  Here's what they said in response:


I'm sorry for the trouble you had when viewing your reports. Our technical team is aware of this problem and we're working toward a resolution as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience while we fix this problem.


I guess there's not a lot I can do except leave it a little while and then write again.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

They got back to me again. Bear in mind, I'd written an incredibly detailed email, included screenshots etc., and addressed the fact the the missing UK sales have now been retroactively removed from my dashboard.  Here's what they said in response:


I'm sorry for the trouble you had when viewing your reports. Our technical team is aware of this problem and we're working toward a resolution as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience while we fix this problem.


I guess there's not a lot I can do except leave it a little while and then write again.

At least they did get back to you with some sort of explanation  . I hope they are working on all the sales data and not just that of people who have complained 

[Gerri Attrick]

As expected, Amazon have now fixed things in their favour and altered my dashboard orders to fit the Month to Date.

Frankly, I think they’ve fiddled - and I’ve been diddled, and robbed blind. I don’t care what they say.

[notthatamanda]

Yep, my dash changed too.  I only lost 3 sales, just adding another data point to the pile.   Sorry to those who lost many more.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

I've compared my KDP monthly sales against Book Report. The page reads and free match exactly, but the sales differ. Book Report records 79 sales while the monthly KDP reports 73 sales and 4 returns. The missing sales could be due to the payment for the books being delayed until the following month. Maybe 

[CoraBuhlert]

I also lost my missing sales, though I have screenshots of the sales graph before the adjustment.

[Gerri Attrick]

And now, for the first time ever (I think), the UK money for March has not appeared in my bank account. I’ve received payments from Canada and the US (dot com) this morning (29th) but not from the  UK.

I shall give it the 5 working days (though the UK money is usually the first to appear, perhaps because it’s my home country) before I contact them. However, this seems to be part and parcel of the greater problem that’s affecting Amazon UK. I sincerely hope they don’t try and sweep this under the carpet, as they’ve done with the missing sales figures.

*Grump*

[notthatamanda]

Only the US and India payments have gone through from me. (I'm in the US)   UK, CA, IT, (IT!) and AUS are still pending.  Fingers crossed for all of us.  The date on all was 5/29 so I'm cautiously optimistic, I haven't had one fail completely yet, conahura, knock wood.

[TimothyEllis]

I'd just like to compare the $ value that BookReport shows with the $ value on the spreadsheet.

Bookreport converts all non-US$ to US$, and presents a number.

The Amazon spreadsheet presents in each currency, so you have to manually convert to a common currency to get any decent comparison or totals.

And even if you do, Bookreport will be using different exchange rates. So you never get them the same.

I ignore everything except what BR says.