Query re author's copies.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

If you buy author copies do they count as sales?
If you gift author copies to someone does it make any difference than just sending them copies (apart from being asked if you want them gift-wrapped ) ?
Is there a limit to the number of author copies you can send to someone? Amazon doesn't ship to SA so I have to have them sent to friends/relatives in the UK and get holidaymakers to bring them back.

Thanks

[alhawke]

It counts as one sale for ranking. If you buy a hundred, it counts as one sale in ranking (I haven't bought a hundred, lol, but I've purchased a few before).

In your case, you could order a bunch of author copies for the discount and then ship each yourself. That's what I do.

{edit but you can't get them delivered to South Africa... not sure, then, Jan, as I've never ordered bundles and gifted them. An alternative option would be to wait and see if it pops up in another store if you chose extended distribution.

[Bill Hiatt]

Wouldn't it be nice if Amazon gave some indication of which bookstores take expanded distribution?

I found an online bookstore that is allegedly based in South Africa at https://exclusivebooks.co.za/ It advertises free delivery to all exclusive bookstores nationwide.

I use expanded distribution, so I checked to see if my books were available. Only three are listed--and as published by Createspace, though one of them has a cover that it didn't have until KDP Print. None of them have fully populated entries, as if it was just too much troubled to be bothered with for some random American. However, it might be worth reaching out to see if you can get your book.

There are three books listed under your name, but I'm not sure if it's the same Jan Hurst-Nicholson. Is Something to Read on the Plane yours? (Apparently, the store doesn't both populating the data for a lot of books, so I can't tell what country it's from. Anyway, they obviously do some business with Amazon, and they're in South Africa, so it looks as if they could do something for you.

There's also https://www.wordsworth.co.za/, but none of my books are there, which may indicate they don't receive expanded distribution.

There's also https://www.takealot.com/, which I see described on Quora as the Amazon of South Africa. It has some of my books (all still listed as from Createspace). I'm starting to wonder if KDP Print only pretends to distribute. This is the same kind of mismash i see on Barnes and Noble, but at least, it indicates the site could order from Amazon.

I'm now seeing a lot of online bookstores based in South Africa. You could reach out to each one see what reactions you get. One would hope that, as a South African author, they might be willing to order copies, even if they don't regularly stock them. It's clear that at least some of them have ordered from Amazon in the past.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Wouldn't it be nice if Amazon gave some indication of which bookstores take expanded distribution?

I found an online bookstore that is allegedly based in South Africa at https://exclusivebooks.co.za/ It advertises free delivery to all exclusive bookstores nationwide.

I use expanded distribution, so I checked to see if my books were available. Only three are listed--and as published by Createspace, though one of them has a cover that it didn't have until KDP Print. None of them have fully populated entries, as if it was just too much troubled to be bothered with for some random American. However, it might be worth reaching out to see if you can get your book.

There are three books listed under your name, but I'm not sure if it's the same Jan Hurst-Nicholson. Is Something to Read on the Plane yours? (Apparently, the store doesn't both populating the data for a lot of books, so I can't tell what country it's from. Anyway, they obviously do some business with Amazon, and they're in South Africa, so it looks as if they could do something for you.

There's also https://www.wordsworth.co.za/, but none of my books are there, which may indicate they don't receive expanded distribution.

There's also https://www.takealot.com/, which I see described on Quora as the Amazon of South Africa. It has some of my books (all still listed as from Createspace). I'm starting to wonder if KDP Print only pretends to distribute. This is the same kind of mismash i see on Barnes and Noble, but at least, it indicates the site could order from Amazon.

I'm now seeing a lot of online bookstores based in South Africa. You could reach out to each one see what reactions you get. One would hope that, as a South African author, they might be willing to order copies, even if they don't regularly stock them. It's clear that at least some of them have ordered from Amazon in the past.

Thanks. 
I ordered two author copies, which have arrived at the address in the UK. I saw two sales on Amazon UK and the royalties are a total of $0.94  which is either my two books, or expanded distribution.

I do sell my print book copies of Something to Read on the Plane to Exclusive Books and have done quite well over the years. They only sell in the airport bookshops (Exclusive Books are the only book stores in our airports) and they give the books prime real estate next to the tills.  But I have to courier the books to the airports (costly). I used to take them to their store in our local shopping mall and they sent them by internal post, but they closed that shop  I was fortunate to get my book into their shop and couldn't get any of my other books in.

I've bought  goods from Takelot, but they would also have to import the books from Amazon.

The publisher of my children's books used a local printer, and I also used them to print my copies of Something to Read on the Plane I see they now offer a POD service, so that might be the answer. I am going to contact them. But then I still have the problem of SA not having a postal service that works so would try selling locally where I could deliver, or use one of the cheaper courier services. But I doubt if I will be selling very many. I might try the local schools 

Thanks for your help and research.