Kindle Store sales report software glitch?

Late last week I emailed Amazon Digital Rights altering them to major discrepancies 
between what I take to be sales events of my Kindle editions in the Kindle Store and my 
December sales report.  Specifically, I noted 17 abrupt "jumps" (really drops, changes from 
16K or higher to 7K or less, as low as 3.8K in a couple of cases) in the sales of my edition 
of South by Ernest Shackleton, but my sales report only shows 2 copies sold.  To Amazon's 
credit, they responded promptly to my inquiry, but with the following statement:

> Sales rankings in the Kindle store are completely separate from the information in your
> sales reports. The rankings could change for many reasons, not all related to number of
> sales.

> The information in your sales reports is the only information we have and is the most 
> accurate information we have regarding book sales. The reports are what you should
> look at to determine the number of books you have sold. You will receive a sales report
> 60 days from the close of the given month. All of your sale information will be included 
> in the report.

This statement makes no sense at all to me, since sales rankings and sales reports are 
both based on sales, and in no way "completely separate" unless sales ranks are 
completely misleading and not actually sales ranks at all.

It's possible that sales ranks reflect sales of both Kindle editions and related print editions, 
and there is a related paperback edition of South.  However, I also noted 4 sales events for Four Major Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, which is strictly an ebook with no 
corresponding print edition, but only one sale was listed on my report.

Knowing that the Kindle Store is a new venture by Amazon, I'm inclined to think that it still 
has some glitches in its database software.  One indication of this is that my Amazon 
Digital Rights publisher royalty payment for November didn't match my sales report (it was 
short by one sale).  I would expect an automated accounting system that's working 
properly to generate payments that precisely match sales reports.

Like some other members of this group, I've been selling ebooks for many years in a 
number of formats through a variety of distribution channels (Mobipocket, LSI, eReader, 
etc.).  Most of these online ebookstores have genre-specific best seller lists similar to 
Amazon sales rankings ("#2 in Winter Sports") and the Kindle Store is the only case in 
which I don't see a close correspondence between sales events and sales reports.

Has anyone else noticed discrepancies between Kindle Store sales ranks for their titles and 
their first two months of sales reports?

John Landahl
InfoStrategist.com
Seattle, WA


------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Post a message:   ebook-community [[at]] *
Unsubscribe:      ebook-community-unsubscribe [[at]] *
Switch to digest: ebook-community-digest [[at]] *
Switch to normal: ebook-community-normal [[at]] *
Put mail on hold: ebook-community-nomail [[at]] *
Administrator:    ebook-community-owner [[at]] *

(* == yahoogroups.com)
-------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:[email protected] 
    mailto:ebook-community-fullfeatured-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ebook-community-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/