ROBUST discussion

I had to ask on the Kindleboards what the acronym BBoS means. It's a reference to the colour of the bar on the Amazon sales report before there are any sales in the month.

Katie's question made me wonder if I could catch the Beige Bar of Shame in the act at precisely midnight Pacific time, 0800 here in civilisation. I have several excellent timepieces, and my Mac also keeps precise time.

The method I use to refresh the screen is simply to flick the tab to another country and then back.

So I sat there with the window open in Safari, my browser, staring at December's sales, and at 075959 flicked from .com to .co.uk to refresh the window, only to find someone had bought a copy of my STIEG LARSSON Man, Myth & Mistress at that very moment, between me looking at the time changing in Seattle and flicking to the UK site. I hurriedly flicked back to the American site but it was too late, there were two sales in the two seconds that elapsed while I swore.

This isn't coincidence. There is no such thing. Someone is conspiring against me though I cannot yet say why.

I don't have that problem, Andre. I have BBoS in every country where Amazon sells ebooks.

Me too, Patricia. I do wish I could have been disappointed like Andre, but alas, my BBoSx6 arrived without incident.

Ha-hah. It's a holiday artefact. Sales are up for Christmas by at least a factor, and so is the take on them, but not in the Select books, though before a fat Christmas I might have approved grudgingly of even their numbers

Next month the BBoS will probably sit there for hours, wondering why I'm no longer interested.

Every time I feel my sales are good they add a new BBoS just to make me feel bad again....

Never saw the BBoS for USA or UK - but I was asleep by then.

However, my reviews for LDL are coming in - I'm cringing. I always knew the book was slow - so a backhanded complement will keep me from drinking the Koolaide.

Read the review, Kat, not that bad. Though they hurt, those two stars are to be expected on free books, many who download won't have looked very carefully at the descriptions. Keep your eye on the prize - continuing sales and name recognition.

BBoS - I've had many of those. LOL James, was nice to see the brown disappear in Dec (if only for a few days) for the Dutch and French sites.

I think they've used industrial glue on mine. :( Ah, well, it was nice while it lasted. Maybe the new book will get things moving again.

Edited to add: on the upside, the six week figures just came through and according to them, I actually sold 11 books that I thought had gone free. That might account for the 9 returns - they probably thought they were getting them free, too. Even better, I finally got over the $100 mark, so Amazon owes me some money!

...and I just got borrowed again. :)

My report has some strange looking Math on it.

I think that my book was getting 35% revenues at one point for books priced $3.99.

Heck, I'm going to break even on LDL. I can't complain.

Sharon - She had something nice to say at one point. And the thing that grossed her out was supposed to be gross. All my research on PTSD paid off.

K.A., you don't get 70% in all countries. When you see 35%, it's a foreign sale.

My BBoS is gone in two countries now. Sales and borrows. A good way to start the New Year.

They may have been borrows - the number was the same.

I had a sale on B&N - my first in months.

Aren't borrows supposed to count towards rankings? I had a borrow this morning but slipped back 20 places on the chart and 20000 on the rankings.

I'm confused about borrows.

I'm confused at the math Amazon uses.

Otherwise, it's all good. LOL

K.A., I guess you didn't believe me about what Amazon does to the royalty percentage in foreign countries, so maybe you'll believe what Amazon says on their site:

Why are royalties displayed at a 35 percent rate in the sales report, when I had selected 70% royalty option for my book?

The 70 percent royalty option is only applicable for books sold to customers in the following countries:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Canada
• France
• Great Britain
• Guernsey
• Germany
• Isle of Man
• Jersey
• Lichtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Monaco
• Switzerland
• United States

For sales to customers outside of the 70% territories listed above, royalties are calculated at 35 percent, and these transactions appear at a 35 percent rate in the sales report.

Katie, borrows are counted as sales as far as participants being paid, but I don't know if they'll have any impact on rankings. To be honest, or rather for Amazon to be honest, I think they'd have to come up with another category for rankings: library loans. It wouldn't be truthful to include loans in the "paid" Kindle Store rankings. I originally thought the loans should be included in rankings, then I realized that would be dishonest.

Here's something Amazon says that's of interest to those of us participating in KDP Select (see the last sentence; I've seen it reported, but not by Amazon, that those numbers will show up around the middle of the month):

To start with, your Month-To-Date Unit Sales Report will have the following additional information: The number of qualified borrows through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library under column "Units Borrowed". In addition, we will soon be adding the amount each eligible KDP Select-enrolled title has earned monthly through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Patricia wrote: "K.A., you don't get 70% in all countries. When you see 35%, it's a foreign sale."

Not quite that simple either. It's a foreign sale in a foreign country without a Kindle Store (or possibly without an Amazon, thought those countries have now been removed from the map -- not crossed, cut out -- in Jeff's office. The 35% applies to the rest. I wish you luck trying to determine what number the 35% is calculated on.

PS. That list further down must be old. Where's Italy. A couple of weeks ago, I seem to remember, Amazon sent around a circular saying that Italy, Spain and France were now 70% countries, being let into KDP as full citizens.

I'm pretty sure I only get 35% on Australian sales which seems completely silly to me.

Andre, Amazon is not consistent re the 35% v 70% royalty in countries that don't have a Kindle Store. I've read posts that say people elsewhere can slip into the store in another country (a 35% one) and make a purchase, and the author gets 70% because of where the purchase was made. I have no idea if that's true or even possible.

Yes, Amazon did extend the 70% royalty in the countries you cited. They're slow about updating the list. I've noticed that before about Amazon -- old info on their official pages and/or nothing at all on their site regarding info they've released to the public via news outlets. Jeff is probably too busy counting his money to take care of that.

When you upload a book in the Kindle Store and choose the 70% option for your home country, all those other countries listed under your own are automatically checked for the same royalty, aren't they? I'm wondering if books uploaded prior to the royalty system change are locked in at the old rate unless an author goes in an manually changes the setting. I'll pull up one of my older books and see what it says.

I had two sales, one each post my 'free' time and each was listed as 35% royalty. Was scratching my head there too, but as Australia is not on the list (thanks for pointing that out Katie), I'm gonna assume that's it. I keep wondering if they thought they would be free and will return them anyway. Will wait and see.

Got a giggle yesterday. I told my friend at the Feedstore about the 2-star review.

"She said she finished it," I said. "That's something."

"That's right," Peggy said.

"I wonder why?"

Peggy giggled. "It was Tag." (The hero.) We both giggled.