For the longest time I trusted my publisher (Rosa) completely, I never doubted for a moment that she didn’t pay all that was due. But then something strange happened …
In the beginning of February my statement for January sales arrived and Rosa claimed that there had been no sales for “Lily”.
I greeted this news with a certain amount of suspicion and with good reason.
I keep an eye on ratings on Amazon.com. On January 15th the rating for “Lily” was #2,350,000 on the Amazon Best Sellers Rank. When I looked again on January 21, the rating for “Lily” was #348,210. The leap in sales rank means that at least four or five copies were sold.
I was so happy I posted in the closed publishers group on Facebook about this leap of sales, but nobody responded. When I contacted Rosa privately, she stated that she doesn’t understand the Amazon rating.
Really … a publisher who doesn’t understand the Amazon rating? It’s not that complicated. The better a book sells, the higher the rating. It’s safe to say that Stephen King, Dan Brown, and J.K. Rowing all at one point or another graced the #1 spot of the best- selling list. You would think that any publisher worth his salt knows about this.
Do you trust your publisher? If your statement reflects that eight copies of your book were sold, but actually ten copies were sold, how would you know?
Respected publishing houses get audited, but does the same apply to micro publishers?