Q. My Aunt Bertha says she bought a copy of my book last month and it’s not showing up on my author account. Why not?!

A. First, remember that we can’t credit an author’s account for Ingram sales until we receive payment from Ingram. Ingram pays us 3-4 months after sales occur. But, for web site orders (booklocker.com), royalties appear instantly in your author acct. So, if Aunt Bertha ordered from us, the number on her sales receipt will appear in your author account. If she purchased from another store, it will show up in the cumulative Ingram numbers that are posted when we’re paid. We don’t receive information on which bookstores ordered from Ingram so we can only post totals for each month. If an Ingram post doesn’t appear in your account one month, that means there weren’t any sales by Ingram for your book that month.

If a friend or family member claims to have purchased your book you should ask them for a copy of their receipt before accusing Ingram of foul play. We often hear complaints from authors who say their aunt or sister said they bought a copy and why aren’t the royalties in their account?

We gently tell them to ask for a copy of the receipt and, in every case where the sales from the relatives were never reported by Ingram or us, it was a result of the relative fibbing to the author about buying their book so as not to hurt the author’s feelings.

I was surprised when I first heard of this happening, but then it happened again and again…and again. It’s very sad. We’ve never had an instance of Ingram selling a book and not paying us for the sale. They’re a large and very reputable company and those discrepancies have never happened to us, nor have we heard of it happening to any other publisher. They have thousands of publishing clients and their reputation is excellent. They sell thousands of books for us each month and every time we do a check on sales, their figures are always correct.

Q. I found a bookstore that’s claiming to have 101 copies of my book in stock. I haven’t been paid for these. Why not?!

A. Bookstores claiming to have 100 or 101 copies (or a number around there) of your book in stock are pulling their information from Ingram’s database. They do NOT have those books in stock. These are mainly online bookstores that often have no physical location at all (meaning they have no inventory). They simply order books from Ingram when a customer orders from them.

A problem Ingram was having with POD books was that bookstores weren’t ordering copies of books because Ingram only showed one or two copies on their shelves. When Ingram sold the one copy they had in stock, there would be none in stock. While bookstores could back-order copies when that happened, many clerks would not do so. They’d simply tell the bookstore customer that none were available. In addition, some large bookstore databases, like BarnesandNoble.com, were directly plugged into the Ingram data feed. So, when Ingram showed zero copies on their shelf, B&N would show the book as “unavailable.”

To try to avoid these growing problems, Ingram decided to put 100 “virtual copies”of POD books in their system. While the number is virtual and the books haven’t yet been printed, they can be printed at a moment’s notice (since Ingram owns our printer). The extra 1 copy in the 101 number is an actual physical book that Ingram has in their inventory. If the one copy isn’t appearing there, that means that one copy either hasn’t yet arrived at Ingram’s warehouse or that the one copy has been sold and another one has been ordered and hasn’t yet arrived. Bookstore now no longer see zero or very few copies in Ingram’s database and no longer hesitate or refuse to place orders based on Ingram’s inventory numbers.

Many bookstores, especially the virtual bookstores (online only) falsely claim the Ingram inventory numbers as their own, maybe to make themselves look bigger than they really are, but probably also because it’s easier to just plug Ingram’s numbers into their database than to show zero copies of a book in stock. However, if you contact them and tell them you’re coming to their location right now to purchase and pick up those 101 copies, they’ll either come clean about their own “virtual inventory” or they’ll tell you to wait a week (so they can quickly order them from Ingram).

Any company with an Ingram account can pull from Ingram’s database feed to create and update their own website. Again, these bookstores have not yet purchased the books, which is why Ingram, nor Booklocker.com, nor you have been paid for those copies.

Q. Where can I check my author account online?

Go here.

Q. Where can I purchase copies of my own books at a discount?

If you are ordering 10 or more books that are going to one location, use this form.

If you are ordering less than 10 books, order through the Booklocker.com Web site. We will pay you a royalty on each book, which is equivalent to the 35% discount we give for author orders of less than 10 books.

Q. Where is the BookLocker marketing help page?

The page is here.

You also might want to consult these articles about online marketing.

Q. Should I refer buyers to the BookLocker site or to Amazon or another store?

Your royalties are higher when a buyer purchases your book through Booklocker.com. (Purchasing through Booklocker.com eliminates the Ingram and bookstore middlemen, thus eliminating the discount we have to offer.) If your POD book has been active for at least a week, it is now available for special order through bookstores. So, your readers can order your book from their local bookstore. But, again, that lowers your royalty and slows your payment. It also slows the delivery time for your buyer. We strongly encourage you to either refer buyers to your page at Booklocker.com, or to buy books at your author discount and sell them directly to your readers. It increases your royalty, your royalty payments, and your customer’s delivery time.

Q. When do I get my royalties for Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other bookstore orders?

Ingram now sends reports to us Net 90+. Therefore, if your friend orders your book today from their local bookstore, we won’t receive payment for that sale for another 3+ months. So that sale won’t appear in your author account and be paid until we receive payment from Ingram.

Royalties for Booklocker.com sales are paid on the fifth business day of each month provided the author’s unpaid royalties exceed $20 at that time.

Q. How long should I allow for delivery of books I order for myself?

Books are usually printed within 2-5 business days and shipped by our printer to you. See details on different methods of ordering and delivery (including our rush option) here. However, no deliveries are guaranteed. Orders get backed up (especially around the holidays), machinery occasionally breaks, etc. If you must have books for a book signing or any other important event, we ask that you allow AT LEAST three weeks to avoid expensive shipping and major stress wondering if your books will arrive.

Q. When are sales logged into my account for BookLocker sales?

Royalties are posted instantly if the purchase occurs through the Booklocker.com site or the WritersWeekly.com site.

If the purchase occurs elsewhere, it is handled by Ingram. They pay Net 90 days. That means if a copy of your book sold today at a local bookstore, Amazon.com, BN.com, or anywhere else Ingram distributes books, we won’t receive payment for that sale for another 3+ months. That sale won’t appear in your author account and be paid until we receive payment from Ingram.

Q. I just logged into Amazon (or another bookstore) and they’ve raised/lowered the price of my book. How can they do that?!

Ingram lists a “suggested retail price” for POD books. They don’t share the entire 30% discount we give them with bookstores that buy your POD book (we speculate that they only offer the bookstore 5%, but we don’t know for sure because Ingram doesn’t make that data public). In an effort to make up the shortfall, Amazon and others occasionally inflate the price of POD books and call it “suggested retail price.” Bookstores don’t have to charge this price, but they probably will to make a profit.

There is nothing we can do to stop this practice, just like there’s nothing Coca Cola can do to make your local grocery store charge a certain price for their product.

Some bookstores actually offer our books at a discount. Their systems are automated so we have no idea how they’re making a profit, unless they’re hoping for multiple sales by the same customer.

If your local bookstore wants to order directly from Booklocker.com, they need to contact us through our wholesale order form. We no longer extend credit to bookstores or anyone else. We’ve been burned to the tune of thousands by bookstores, retailers, libraries and even schools.

Q. When will my book/cover art/etc. appear on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.?

A. It will take 1-4 weeks depending on each individual store. They all receive the Ingram feed simultaneously. Some just work faster than others.

Q. Amazon has a bunch of “used” copies of my book for sale. I was never paid for those sales! What gives?!

A. Anybody with an Ingram account can list copies of Ingram’s books for sale anywhere they choose, including Amazon. These “new and used” copies available on Amazon have not even been printed yet. These companies are simply trying to get a piece of the Amazon customer action. Once someone orders from them, they’ll order a copy from Ingram.

Q. Hey! I found my book for sale on a bunch of websites I’ve never heard of! Did they steal my book?

A. No. Any bookstore with an Ingram account can list Ingram’s inventory for sale. Once someone orders from them, they’ll order a copy from Ingram.

Q. I want to add more content to my book’s description on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Add content to Amazon by going here.

Add content to Barnes and Noble by going here.

Q. How can I convince my local bookstore to buy my POD books?

See this article:
Selling Your Print On Demand Book To Bookstores by Angela Hoy

Q. Barnes and Noble wants to host a book signing for me…but they insist my books be returnable. What can I do?

A. Bookstore returns were instituted during the depression to help bookstores stay in business. Interestingly, however, the practice never died, despite the end of the depression. According to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg of The Wall Street Journal, “The book industry, by contrast, has been saddled with (returns) since the Depression, when publishers told struggling bookstores they could return unwanted books as long as they kept ordering new titles.” The article is quite disturbing, sharing the dollar figures for returned books (estimated at $800M -yes MILLION - last year alone), how authors aren’t paid for returns, even if the books are then sold to discount warehouses, and other inner-workings of a system few authors really know anything about. An average of 35%-40% of books are returned by bookstores each year. That means they routinely over-budget their needs by 35%-40%! If the rest of the world did business that way, the economy would be in shambles.

Booklocker.com books are printed on demand, when a customer orders the book. We do not warehouse books and we do not accept returns. Bookstores should be financially responsible for their own budgeting and should not force publishers and authors to pay for their poor accounting. You can read more of what we found about this ridiculous practice in these two articles:

http://www.writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/002947_09142005.html

http://www.writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/002963_09212005.html

If you want to purchase copies at your author discount and then sell “returnable books” directly to the bookstore, please be careful. Don’t let them talk you into buying more copies than they/you can sell. Most authors sell just a handful of books in a signing. Bookstores really don’t care about your costs (your loss) when it’s all over. Remember that. They set up signings to attract customers to their store…hoping those customers will browse and buy more than one book. They don’t care if their customers buy your book or not - as long as they buy any book from their store (or a coffee at their coffee shop).

Q. Another POD publisher will let me make my books returnable if I pay them $500 per year. Why don’t you have a similar program?

A. Oh, sure, we could upsell authors on a program like that, but we wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if we did. We don’t offer a program like that because we know you’ll never get your money back. If those publishers really thought making a book returnable would make a book profitable, they wouldn’t charge authors to make books returnable. They’d make all their books returnable. It’s just another way for them to dig even deeper into their authors’ pockets. Even making your books returnable isn’t going to get your book on all the bookstore shelves. Bookstores don’t stock the majority of traditionally published books, either. There just isn’t enough shelf space.

Q. Should I write a sequel to my novel?

See this article:
Doubling Your Dollars By Dekker Malone

Q. Should I sell my books on ebay?

See this article:
Selling Your Books on eBay By Rick Snider

Q. I need help with book signings. Do you have any tips?

See these articles:
HOW TO GET BOOK SIGNINGS IN BOOKSTORES By Rickey Pittman

Ten Tips for Tackling Book Signings…and Other Helpful Hints By Kimberly Ripley

Q. Where can I get inexpensive bookmarks, business cards, postcards, and other products that feature my book’s cover and information?

A. You can purchase 500 full-color bookmarks for $79.00 at printingforless.com. Postcards are 500 for $129.00. Business cards are $49.95 for one-sided, full-color business cards. Two-sided cards are a bit more.

CafePress.com offers some really neat things you can have your book’s cover and info. printed on, like t-shirts, stickers, coffee mugs, underwear (no, we’re not kidding) and more.

Q. A book reviewer wants a free copy of my book. Is this a scam?

A REVIEWER SCAM AND HOW TO AVOID IT By Beth Ann Erickson

Q. Why don’t you give credit to bookstores, schools and libraries that want to order my book? Why do you make them pre-pay? Can I sell to them directly?

A. We no longer give credit to any company (including the government) because we were stiffed by so many. We have numerous unpaid invoices that are years old from bookstores, gift shops, schools, libraries and others. We were losing thousands of dollars each year and the collection efforts were frustrating and only resulted in more losses (because of the time spent trying to collect). In the end, not only were we out all that money, but our authors were, too. They couldn’t earn royalties on sales we were never paid for…even though the books were being sold and/or distributed by these companies/entities. For these types of orders, we’re talking dozens and sometimes hundreds of copies of books being printed and distributed with no payment.

The loss for us, being a small business, was staggering. And, there’s only so much you can do to collect when you’re dealing with large bookstores and the government. They know there’s just about nothing you can do to force them to pay (threatening collection efforts rarely results in anything) and they really don’t care if you threaten to stop sending books to them.

Another problem we had with bookstores and the government was that, even though our policy has always been “no returns”, they’d return books anyway and deduct the money for those from money they owed us on other orders. It was extremely frustrating and a battle we couldn’t win. In the end, they really didn’t care what our policy was or what they’d agreed to do. They simply wanted to do business their own way and refused to negotiate with us or to even discuss the issues. They literally “blew us off.” So, be very wary if you’re considering extending credit to retailers and government entities.

We quickly and easily put an end to all that be requesting prepayment on all orders. Our sales did not decrease when we did that, and our income increased (because we are now paid for 100% of sales). A couple of years later, we were forced to write off thousands in losses due to many bookstores and other entities never paying their bills. We now have no collection problems at all and our authors are paid for all books sold.

Our ordering process is really quite simple for bookstores, retailers and the government. In fact, getting on a secure form and ordering books that will be delivered within a week or so is much easier than issuing a purchase order, sending that by mail, waiting for the order to arrive, processing an invoice and then printing and mailing a check. We’re very happy to accept checks from bookstores, retailers and the government, as long as they understand that we’re not shipping the books until the check arrives.

Bookstores who don’t want to use a credit card or mail a check will order from Ingram. However, we process credit card orders and pre-payment checks from bookstores, retailers, schools, libraries and more almost every day. We know we’re not the only publisher to demand pre-payment because they all willingly pre-pay when they realize that’s our firm policy.

If you choose to purchase copies at your author discounts (you receive a minimum of 35% off the list price for 1-25 copies and the discounts get deeper according to the number of books you purchase), and then give credit to any store or government entity, we strongly urge you to give them a small credit limit and to stand firm by that number to avoid being out the money if they get overzealous in ordering books but then decide they don’t want to pay for one reason or another. If they get behind, simply refuse to send any more books until they’ve paid what they owe.