Understanding Standard Book Sales Report

This article is in development, we hope you find it useful although not all the links are working perfectly yet.

Most publishers get our standard invoice value sales report if you are paid as a percentage of retail value please search for an alternative kbase article. (Please note publishers can also track sales day by day by visiting https://central.bookweb.co.uk/ or look at https://www.centralbooks.com/knowledge-base/knowledge-base/book-publishers-information/onlinedata.html for more information). 

Every month we send book publishers, by email, 7 files giving monthly data and more. The words in italics appear in the file names publishers receive.

Mailingfile, only in csv format, data which gives information about what we have sent to non-account customers.

customerbooksales, come in csv and pdf, this gives data on what account holders have bought in the month.

Dues, come in csv and pdf, this gives data on what account holders have recorded due (back orders or pre-orders)

booksales, come in csv and pdf, this gives data each title we carry. Below is a hypothetical example of such a report with hyperlink to explain the headings and the figures.

You can down load a pdf guide to your monthly report by clicking here.

Below is a Sample August 2002 Sales Report for an imaginary publisher called Maternity.

DISTRIBUTION CHARGE 17.50% REPPING CHARGE 12.50%  Credit Value of returns Month 22.00  Credited value of Returns Year 519.66  TOTAL INVOICE VALUE OF GOODS SUPPLIED THIS MONTH 2,589.16

If you would like to know about the financial documents we send out each month please take a look at www.centralbooks.com/media/wysiwyg/MonthlyDocumentsGuideBooks.pdf.

Copies Sold (Month, Year to Date, Life)  

Abbreviations: "Month", "YTD" and "Life"

"Copies Sold" is the net sales in copies, number of copies invoiced minus the number returned.

"Month" is the calendar month specified at the top of the report.

"YTD" stands for Year to Date, this is the financial year running April - March.

"Life" stands for sales every since Central began selling this title.

The figures are inclusive, the YTD figure includes the August sales and the life figure includes thus year's sales. (Click here to go back to table above)

Example of Copies Sold

So this column shows the number of copies sold in the Month, Year and Life of the titles. In this example 181 copies of Maternity Handbook 7th have been sold in the month of August, whilst 4 copies of Maternity Handbook 6th have been returned this financial year giving a net figure of -4. (Click here to go back to table above)

Invoice Value (Month and year to date)

Abbreviations: "Month" and "YTD"  

"Invoice Value" is the net invoice value of sales, invoice value of copies invoiced minus the invoice value of those returned.

"Month" is the calendar month specified at the top of the report.

"YTD" stands for Year to Date, this is the financial year running April - March.

The figures are inclusive, the YTD figure includes the August sales.

So these two columns shows the invoice value of copies sold in the Month and the Year for this publishers titles. (Click here to go back to table above)

Examples of Invoice Value

In this example the 181 copies net sales of Maternity Handbook 7th in August had a total invoice value of £2,457.40 whilst for Maternity Handbook 6th the 4 copies returned since April 2002 have a total invoice value of minus £47 [the YTD column is rounded to the nearest £]. (Click here to go back to table above)Text

Stock [Total and New]

"Total" is the stock Central Books had at the end of the month of August 2002.

"New" is the stock received by Central Books in the month of August 2002.  (Click here to go back to table above)

Examples of Stock [Total and New]

In this example 2028 copies of Maternity Handbook 7th were received from the publisher in August 2002 and Central Books were left with 2238 copies at the end of August.

(Click here to go back to table above) 

Dues  / Recorded Orders / Back Orders

Abbreviation: "Dues"

"Dues" stands for recorded orders or back orders, these are usually recorded orders for the given title [but can be standing orders if the report for the title is SO].

Example Dues  from this hypothetical publisher

Maternity Handbook 7th edition has a report of STK but has dues for 20 copies. It is likely that they were tele-ordered in the last few days of August and will be supplied in September, alternatively an account is on stop and their orders on on hold until payments are made.

Maternity Handbook has a report of SO and has dues for 823 copies. These are standing orders, so when each edition of Maternity Handbook is published 823 copies go out to those customers who have placed a standing order.

Laws on Maternity [new ed] has a report of NYP and has dues for 100 copies. These orders will be invoiced out on publication.

With every monthly sales report we send a breakdown of all the recorded orders, showing which shops has recorded orders for which title.

Shops and wholesalers increasingly ask us not to record orders, some of these accounts later re-order. If a shops customer cancels the order with them they will cancel it with us. If publishers need information as to when a recorded order was canceled this can be provided.

Note for Publishers who use Central Books' Mail Order Service

We do record orders for Mail Order cash sales customers but these recorded orders are not part of the dues figure on the general sales report or on the dues list. This is because we simply send the customer a proforma when the goods become available they then make the decision as to sending cash or ignoring the proforma. This will only effect your list if you use Central Books for all your mail order sales.

(Click here to go back to table above)

Cover Price / Retail Price  

Abbreviation: "Price"

"Price" stands for sterling cover price or retail price. This is the price before any trade discount might have been given.

Example of Price

In this example the retail or cover price for Maternity Handbook 7th is £22.00.

(Click here to go back to table above)

Report [Book status and Dates]

This column gives the current reports for the titles.

where customers allow we record orders for the following:

• "NYP" stands for Not Yet Published, followed by the expected month of publication.

• "STK" stands for Available or In Stock

• "TOS" stands for Temporarily Out of Stock

• "RP" stands for Reprinting followed by the expected month of reprint.

• "SO" stands for Standing Order, used for series, journals and magazines only.

We cancel orders for the following:

• "OP" stands for Out of Print, followed by the month the title went out of print.

• "ABA" stands for Abandoned

• "NR" stands for No Rights.

• "NLS" stands for No Longer Stocked, followed by the month we stopped handling the title.

With so many titles on our database and with publication schedules always changing our reports can often be out of date, it is very helpful for us and our retailers if the report dates are as accurate as possible. 

Examples of Reports

In this example Maternity Handbook 7th has a report of STK , showing that it is available.  Whilst the new edition of Laws on Maternity has a report of NYP 6/02, as June has passed this report is out of date, the publisher should up date Central Books with a new publication date .

Date of Publication  

Abbreviation: "Pub-Date"

This column gives the first publication date of each title.

(Click here to go back to table above)

Consignment Stock (csv report)

This appeatrs in the csv version of the book sales report. Column AA if you open  XXXXXbooksalesDDMMYYYY.csv .

This is the total stock in all "consignment" warehouses. If we supply Amazon on your behalf this will include Amazon. If we supply Gardners by consignment this will be included.

The column “Consignment Stock” covers ALL consignment stock. In your case that is only Amazon.

When we supply stock to Amazon this figure goes up, when Amazon declare they have sold copies this figure  goes down, when Amazon return stock to us this figure goes down.

If the figure was 10 at the end of a July, we supply 5 in August and we process sales of 6 in Augst then the figure change 10 + 5 – 6 = 9.

Amazon Stock Added (csv report)

This appears in the csv version of the book sales report. Column AC if you open  XXXXXbooksalesDDMMYYYY.csv .

This is the total consignment stock despatched to Amazon in the month to Amazon.

MTD Gross Returns (csv report)

This appears in the csv version of the book sales report. Column P if you open  XXXXXbooksalesDDMMYYYY.csv .

It shows the number of copies of returns we have credited in the month.

MTD Gross Cop (csv report)

This appears in the csv version of the book sales report. Column Q if you open  XXXXXbooksalesDDMMYYYY.csv .

It shows the number of copies suplied and invocied to customers in the month.

MTD Gross (csv report)

This appears in the csv version of the book sales report. Column T if you open  XXXXXbooksalesDDMMYYYY.csv .

It shows the invocie value of copies suplied and invocied to customers in the month.

Dam MTD (csv report)

This appears in the csv version of the book sales report. Column X if you open  XXXXXbooksalesDDMMYYYY.csv .

It shows the number of copies credited as damaged in the month.

Dam Life (csv report)

This appears in the csv version of the book sales report. Column Y if you open  XXXXXbooksalesDDMMYYYY.csv .

It shows the number of copies credited as damaged in the life of the title.