Wondering why your book sales aren’t showing up on your IngramSpark dashboard? You’re not alone. Here are a couple answers to this common burning book-sales question.
Answer 1: They’re on the Way
When you sell a book, you want to know about it. You want it to show up in your IngramSpark account. But for some annoying reason, it doesn’t!
Why the delay? Because as the helpful customer service representative at IngramSpark explained, your sales only hit your dashboard “when the books leave our facility.”
That means you may sell 30 books on Tuesday, but those sales won’t register until the books get printed and shipped by Ingram. Currently, that is estimated to be between five and ten business days (Monday through Friday). However, if you offer preorder, you may wait longer to see sales on your dashboard. Those books don’t print and ship until right before your book publishes.
While this may be frustrating, it makes sense. Don’t get frustrated. Because with all the supply chain chaos, things may take longer soon. If it does, be gracious and patient. IngramSpark provides a service never available in the history of the world. If it takes a few extra days for your books to ship and for your sales to show up, that’s okay.
Answer 2: You Already Got Paid
Six months after publishing your book, you meet up with some old friends. You tell them about your book, and they all order a copy right then and there—right in front of your face! The next day, you log into IngramSpark but there are no sales recorded. You log in again the next day, and still nothing.
Sound familiar? Don’t worry. You’ll get paid for your books. Actually, you probably already did.
IngramSpark doesn’t sell directly to readers. They sell to book sellers. This scenario explains how your book gets connected to readers and book sellers.
Before your book’s publish date, you sell 100 books during the preorder stage. A book (re)seller notices this and orders 200 books, expecting you to sell more in the future. After shipping out the 100 initial books, the reseller has 100 books left in her warehouse.
Six months later, you see your old friends and sell a dozen more books. You’re excited to sell books, and your friends are excited that your book is priced at a discount on Amazon.
When the order goes through, the reseller takes a dozen books off her warehouse shelf and ships them to your friends.
These sales never reach your Ingram dashboard, and you don’t get paid for these sales. You got paid six months ago, when the book seller bought 200 copies of your book. If you got paid again, you would get paid twice for a single book. And that’s not happening.
Still Feeling Lost?
If you’re still struggling to see your IngramSpark sales, the video below may help explain things. If not, reach out to us with your questions and we’ll do our best to answer them.