how to know?

[saat sulaiman]

how to know about publisher lied about royalty?
for example,books sold 10,000 copy but publisher announced only 5000 copy sold.
so how to detect about that????

[Ce Ce]

How do you know the book sold 10,000 copies? Where are you getting detailed sales information?

Because, unfortunately, most of us have to trust the publisher to provide that info.

[Cathy C]

"Sold" has sort of a different meaning in publishing than in any other industry. Here's the thing:

A publisher "sells" their books to bookstores. Except they call those books "shipped." This is because the bookstore has the option to "return" the books if they don't sell to the end customer.

That's the OTHER definition of "sold" and it can get confusing to authors, because royalties are based on the formula of:

Books shipped, minus books returned, equals books sold.

It's quite possible that 10,000 books were shipped and 5,000 were returned in that same royalty period. Happens all the time, so it might be that you're BOTH right.

It's even quite possible that another thousand or two will be returned in the second royalty period. It's why most publishers have a clause in the contract called "reserves against returns." It means they won't pay any potential royalties to the author until a full year from initial shipping has passed, to be sure all the returns are done.

As Ce Ce asked, are you sure that 10,000 books were sold to individual customers picking it up in bookstores, or are you going by the number shipped in the first press run?

[Ce Ce]

It means they won't pay any potential royalties to the author until a full year from initial shipping has passed, to be sure all the returns are done.

It should be noted that once you're multi-published, and the publisher can look at a consistent track record of sales, they do begin to pay royalties in the first reporting period following publication. They still hold a reserve, mind you, but all parties have a better idea of the minimum number of sales that are likely, so the reserve isn't a huge percentage.