PubIt! System Announcement: My Sales Page Update

[drdln]

2nd hand: amazon does not update sales data everyday as far as I know.  They updated mine on 1st and then 8th of january. It appears to be weekly sale.

BN has posted January 6th the last sale.  But added as recent as today in December sale.  Looks like they have to catch up with order processing before they can update sales.

Do you have ebooks published anywhere other than bn and amazon? Thanks.

drdln-non-fiction

[sayndee]

For me,

Amazon sales update instantly. i know this because of friends who have purchased books...and I checked the sales list before and after. As I said -- instant! Also, I sell three times more books on Amazon...for one thing, my books are more visible there.  On B & N, they get buried...and even hard for me to find!

I feel sure that at some point, B & N will get it together. But now, after all this time, not holding my breath. But I do feel for the guys or gals who are tryng to "fix" it. I am sure they are under tremendous pressure from all sides...Anyway, I hope they get it fixed soon!

[Mrs-Smith]

I agree, BN sells me more books than Amazon. But I haven't seen an update in my sales page updated since Jan 3. I have a hard time believing that I haven't made a sale since then. I just hope that when its finished we can all access our sales pages without problems.

I would hate to remove my books from here when they sell so well here.

Please Pubit Admin. Fix this for us.

Melissa

Cloud Nine (A Paranormal Romance of the Guardians of Man)  

[sayndee]

I know for a fact I've sold some...One from a book I just published! no sales reported on it. Though it has a ranking. And due to rankings on some others, I know I've sold them too. But you think they've been reported, not yet. But, hopeully, they will fix it soon!

[2ndhandstory]

drdin:  I do have my books available elsewhere, that is why I am surprised at the sales or lack of on B&N. 

Also, in October, November and December they were actually giving a daily talley and not a weekly.

My sales rank on B&N does not seem to be falling however and that makes me think the books are still selling.

[biirusan]

I am new to PubIt. Not meaning new to having my books on B&N. The 24 to 72 hours is 8 days ago now. It seems that the sales page isn't the only problem. Twice I have contacted customer support with absolutely no replies. I want my novels to be available on Nook but this isn't impressing me or giving me confidence. Like the comment I just read, ... don't beta test live. Is it that hard to have tech support that works?

[chezjim]

Kindle at least updates all through the day, but only quantities, and offers more complete data for the last six weeks, which is a bit strange, since extracting the current month's total becomes a chore.

Createspace (the other Amazon publisher) also updates daily.

In regard to our current problem, I wonder how many people have considered the fact that this is the start of the year. If the calendar year corresponds with their financial year (not always the case), could that be an element in the glitch?

Maybe the real problem is accounting not technical?

[chezjim]

By the way, Google Editions has reporting problems too. But I'm guessing they've had zero complaints. Why? Because they've put a great big headline above the figures saying that they're still implementing all this.

Clearly BN is too. But they leave us guessing as to what's tentative and what's final.

One thing I learned early on is: if you see any figures, grab'em. That is, save the page or a spreadsheet to your hard drive. Because everything might be gone an hour later.

[AndrasNagy]

Interesting seeing these posts, yesterday I have noticed a sale (1) but somehow that is not added to the Dec2011 monthly total. Obviously the system is broken. While I am having high hopes of BN eBook sales I must focus on the fact that I publish printed books as well. This venue is 25% of my overall sales channels 

1) Lightningsource

2) Createspace

3) Kindle

4) Nook

I would never dream taking down my books now. I will wait and see what happens. I am sure slowly it will be fixed. Now I am more focusing on timely pay for November 2010. 

All in all this whole system is so new and I applaud BN to do this(Nook) at all, maybe they will have a chance to go head to head with Amazon.

Patience is a virtue.... 

Andras Nagy

http://www.andras-nagy.com

[WriterGurl1]

As worrisome as the issue is, I 'm reassured that I'm not the only one seeing the problem. I've been frustrated with the PubIt! system anyway because of how they burying the self-published titles in what is basically a slush pile and label us in a negative way to their users (I've seen requests in other posts from users who don't want to see PubIt! books at all). I was beginning to think that I would have to take down the book I've published through them and redistribute it to BN through Smashwords. You would think that they would want all the extra revenue we are providing, but they either haven't quite grasped how powerful the new authors can be for their bottom line, or they haven't figured out how to institute a system that will make them more money in the end.

I'm not an IT person, but I work in advertising for a day-job and our programmers would never work on a live site. They mirror everything when updating/improving--not going live until the system is proven. This delay in reporting sales (I'm assuming it's simply a delay as I'm selling hundreds of books monthly on other sites and here my sales are...2 for the month) makes me think they may not have lost our sales completely, but are having to manually retrieve the data...

I wish BN luck. I think it will be a wonderful site when the glitches are ironed out. ...just work faster.

[drdln]

2nd hand.  Thanks for the response. You mind sharing where you sell ebooks other than Amazon and BN. My email for your private response: drdln3@gmail.com.  I will really appreciate it. Wish you all the best at amazon and bn.

I don't have my books along with title and date being updated daily at Amazon, as is the case with Elaine.  But thanks Elaine for letting me know.

Thanks.

drdln-non-fiction

[Franco_American]

Not being a tech person I was willing to give B&N the benefit of the doubt regarding the sales reports, but after reading some of the posts from tech people my confidence has been shaken.  It is absurd that you would have in place a system that was not thoroughly tested and capable of handling real time reporting no matter how many ebooks were sold.

I do not agree with one other post, however, that indicated the B&N considers ebooks th low end of what they have to offer, or that B&N presents them in a negative way.  In my opinion, you have invested too much in the Nook and advertise it too prominently for that kind of a comment.to have standing. Ebooks are the future.

For others authors to consider, I know how many of my books sold in a 12 day period to achieve a certain ranking.  I also know that my ranking improved so I can do a rough calculation of how many of each of my books must be selling that have not been reported.  I have been recording my daily ranking for each of my books with excel and screen shots.  I suggest that everyone else does the same.

[k0pper]

B&N had to release PubIt. They simply could not have afforded to miss the holiday season. Also, sometimes you can test something to death, but it's almost impossible to test exactly how a system is going to work with hundred of thousands of customers and thousands of vendors.

Our sales have not been lost. I'll say again, the reporting system is completely separate from the sales system. Sales are obviously being captured. Reporting is obviously behind.

This morning I saw another $80 in sales added to my Dec report. So that should tell us that the reporting system is as much as 2 weeks behind right now.

[Swordarkeereon]

I agree with k0pper. I too just had another $60 in sales add to my December report last night and more to my January 1-6th sales. Plus my dailys are starting to show sales here and there, but I'm willing to bet they're not entirely accurate either since the sales are still updating from last month and the first six days of this month.  So I'm pretty sure they're working on it. Like I said before, and I'll say it again, as long as the numbers are moving up- I'm happy because it tells me they are working to rectify the situation. As with all things, patience is key.

[Franco_American]

I hope you are right.  I show some sales only to the 5th of January and I know for certain there are sales missing even from those days.

[merwalker]

I think that B & N got stormed by purchases from all those buying a Nook for the first time or received it as a Christmas gift.

I'm banking that they'll get it fixed soon. 

[driverlikejehu]

In some ways this is a pretty positive thing (at least that's how I'm looking at it)

1. In terms of sales, December was a monster month on Amazon AND on B&N- and the good news is, at about the halfway mark for January, my sales over there have already matched December and just keep on going. I would anticipate similar percentages here.

2. Sales were actually tracking fairly well for the first few days of January- then began to get further and further behind. And before they quit reporting, they were really big numbers.

3. All this to say- if we're behind in reporting, it's because of big sales, lots of money to be tracked. Everyone should relax- I've seen similar glitches over at Amazon- they always get worked out.

Here's to a big January!

[RandyBenjamin]

Still showing zero sales on Pubit account. I just started keeping a ranking and it's went from 144,211 to 97,973 in the last three days. I've sold over 200 books on Amazon so far this month. (same book) and zero on B&N... strange... and the ranking is going down? (good thing I'd think)

Oh well, I guess something will show up soon. It is the 18th of January! No sales since Dec 27th... Strange

[chezjim]

That may because the system is playing catch-up.

Several people have complained they've started seeing sales, but far less than expected. However, I just noticed that even though the spreadsheet heading is for a range going up to today, the sales are dated only up to the 6th. Which is to say, one day after what I had before. Meanwhile, my rankings and brief appearances of other books in "today" or "yesterday"'s sales make it clear I've had other sales later.

So I wonder if for some reason they're not rebuilding the figures day by day. Slowly.....

[drdln]

Franco: I wonder how do you calculate number of sales from ranking! I realize it will be approximate.  One of my books ranking is about 15K. Any guess on sales. Thanks and good luck for sale reports.

drdln_non-fiction