Sales Not Appearing Yet
Understanding sales reporting delays. Sales reporting delays of 30-90 days are standard across the entire publishing industry — all distributors experience these delays.
Retailer Reporting Timelines
Apple Books
- Reporting delay: 30-45 days after sale
- Frequency: Monthly reports
- Example: December sale appears late January to mid-February
Google Play Books
- Reporting delay: 30-60 days after sale
- Frequency: Monthly reports
Kobo
- Reporting delay: 45-60 days after sale
- Frequency: Monthly reports
OverDrive (Libraries)
- Reporting delay: 60-90 days after checkout
- Frequency: Quarterly reports
Subscription Services (Kobo Plus, Storytel)
- Reporting delay: 30-60 days after page reads
- Payment model: Per-page-read, not per-book
Complete Timeline
| Month | What Happens |
|---|---|
| Month 1 | Reader purchases your book |
| Month 2 | Retailer processes sale internally |
| Month 3 | Retailer reports to us — appears in your dashboard |
| Month 4 | Retailer pays us — we pay you (if over $5) |
Why the Delay?
- Return period: Retailers allow 14-30 day return windows
- Accounting cycles: Monthly accounting close processes
- Fraud prevention: Time to identify and process chargebacks
- Industry standard: Net-60 to net-90 payment terms are universal
What You Can Do
- Log in monthly to see new sales as retailers report them
- Track external metrics while waiting (Amazon rankings, website traffic)
- Keep a spreadsheet of marketing activities to correlate with sales later
When to Contact Support
- Over 90 days since you know a sale occurred
- You have proof of purchase but sale never appeared
- Sales stopped appearing entirely for multiple months
- Significant discrepancy in expected vs reported sales