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Post by adrianallan on Sept 14, 2021 16:37:52 GMT
Hi I am really confused about this and I'd appreciate your help I noticed that this month, I wasn't getting paid at all for one book in particular when sold on Amazon  So I filled in a support ticket and they said this was correct "For your reference, the revenue in your account is based on the Net Profit paid to Lulu by the retailers where the book was sold. As with all sales on Lulu or through retailers, the Net Profit amount is split between the author (80%) and Lulu’s commission (20%). The final amount you receive may vary based on the currency used by the customer who bought the book, the production cost based on where it’s printing, and the distribution fees deducted by each retailer. Your list price must be at least twice the print cost in order to cover production and Distribution Fees. Additionally, if you do not have a tax form on file, your revenue may be subject to standard tax withholding rates. Further, when retailers report sales to Lulu, they also provide the information in the currency the order was paid for. For example, a book sold in Australian dollars (AUD) is reported to us in AUD and shown on your Sales & Payments page, while the estimated unpaid revenue indicates your preferred currency of payment. The final conversion rate is determined on the date of payment; therefore, revenue earned for a book purchased in different stores can vary. This is what seems to be valuing your return revenue at 0.00 USD after GBP / EUR conversion." So, do I need to price my book higher? I try to price my books fairly, in line with similar books Here is my price break-down:  many thanks |
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Post by BlueAndGold on Sept 14, 2021 19:18:08 GMT
Owwwch!  Larceny! If you are not being paid for your books, then it is NOT a fair price. I vote raise the price. Peter has to pay Paul. |
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Post by adrianallan on Sept 14, 2021 20:41:57 GMT
Owwwch! Larceny! If you are not being paid for your books, then it is NOT a fair price. I vote raise the price. Peter has to pay Paul. yeah - I just can't give these away I did work out that this book took around 250 hours to write! |
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Post by potet on Sept 14, 2021 23:03:04 GMT
You have my sympathy. This happened to me a couple of times ago. See my threads about it. I placed a ticket with Lulu. The answer was the price (35€) of my book (Ancient Beliefs and Customs of the Tagalogs) was too low for Amazon to make a profit - which to me is unbelievable, because Amazon used to make a profit on it, and pay me a small sum for my royalties. Lulu advised me to use their chart to calculate an updated price from which I could obtain determined royalties. It came with about 60€ for me to be paid 10€. This made me so angry that I withdrew all my titles from Global Distribution. The only snag is that Amazon and other on-line bookstores now only sell outdated editions of my titles. Now my books are only available from Lulu.
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Post by BlueAndGold on Sept 15, 2021 0:13:17 GMT
As the various currencies are manipulated and devalued (inflated), prices of everything must go up, including the prices of books. For-instance, how much have your grocery bills, gasoline bills, clothing bills, etc. all gone up in the last two years? It has been staggering in my little corner of the world.
It follows that book prices must go up too. Everyone understands that. (Well, everyone that might know how to read, anyway.)
That's my take on it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2021 4:59:46 GMT
As the various currencies are manipulated and devalued (inflated), prices of everything must go up, including the prices of books. For-instance, how much have your grocery bills, gasoline bills, clothing bills, etc. all gone up in the last two years? It has been staggering in my little corner of the world. It follows that book prices must go up too. Everyone understands that. (Well, everyone that might know how to read, anyway.) That's my take on it. There should have been some kind note like "When setting your royalties, take into account inflation and the inevitable rise of book costs. " Imagine being 90, having published your book 15 years ago and having to go in now to navigate the nonsense-new-site. |
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Post by Ken on Sept 15, 2021 8:28:42 GMT
I’m always interested when folks complain about actual small amounts received.
The reasons are almost always the same, insufficient research, thought and investigation into cost and price structure in the first place.
Basing a selling price on what similar books may sell for obviously ignores production methods and techniques. A POD book will never be able to compete with production runs and marketing of traditional printing.
Setting initial targets of making just a pound or two seems a little strange, obviously based on wanting to make a profit whilst keeping the price as low as possible. It would be more realistic to make ten pounds or more if you are confident of the quality of the book.
Whilst there has been some criticism of Lulu and their resellers revised pricing over the last two years I cannot accept that it was unexpected or information on it not available.
In another thread you discuss how much Lulu’ers expect to make and that you don’t expect monetary success and then here you say you spent 250 hours writing the book obviously feeling that has a cost.
Finally, if you are dissatisfied with Lulu’s results I suggest that you republish everything on IngramSpark where there pricing and cost benefits are most clearly explained before starting each project.
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Post by hulsey on Sept 15, 2021 9:44:47 GMT
It's not great that we have to inflate the prices of our books to make even a pittance, but that's the way it is. One of my books last month which is priced at £9-99 print generated a whole 18p for me. The ebook which is £3 gives me a far greater deal. Incidentally, my sales since this catastrophic transition have dropped drastically. I notified Lulu that no sales last month was impossible after waiting until two days after the usual sales data day. I have thirty-two books and check their progress every day on Amazon Central. I was livid and even threatened to take legal action. They have not responded as yet, but lo and behold, a batch of book sales appeared shortly after. A mystery to me is how come I've had hundreds of ratings for some of my books on Goodreads over the last year, but the sales revenue does not tally. I now suspect pirates are profitting from my books. Okay, I honestly write and publish books for the enjoyment and my expectations of making big money is low, but people stealing my work makes my blood boil.
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Post by potet on Sept 15, 2021 11:51:58 GMT
I advise you to sell only through the Lulu bookstore. Now that I quit Global Distribution several months ago, my clients can only buy my books from Lulu. Ancient Beliefs and Customs of the Tagalogs that used to be sold for 35.00€ and brought me 00.00€ with Amazon starting from last year, is now priced 27.87€ and my royalties are 10.15€.  Lulu is definitely the best.  |
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Post by Ken on Sept 15, 2021 12:07:23 GMT
I advise you to sell only through the Lulu bookstore. But only if you drive customers to it. No one will visit the Lulu bookstore if they don’t know it exists. You still have to market the product. For Adrian that should be easy as it appears that he already has an expansive customer base. I come back to my favourite saying “people only buy Kellogg’s cornflakes as Kellogg’s markets and advertises them day in day out.” |
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Post by potet on Sept 15, 2021 17:07:45 GMT
Of course, Ken. I advertise my books on FaceBook by intervening in threads dealing with the same topics, and always refer to Lulu. In many cases, I just paste the link to the book in the Lulu bookstore.
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Post by adrianallan on Sept 16, 2021 6:09:01 GMT
Thanks for your responses everybody
I have to hold my hands up and admit that I am first and foremost not a businessman. So forgive me for deciding on a price for my book which I felt was reasonble and what I would be pleased to buy it for. People also rate books based on price.
Lulu does give you a minimum price - I used this. But I had no idea that I would have to make it higher still than this minimum.
I have raised the price of the book by £3 but it has no yet shown up on Amazon etc. So I will see what happens next month.
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Post by potet on Sept 16, 2021 9:25:20 GMT
Let's wait and see.
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Lulu is definitely the best.