top5ways-to-track

The author community was abuzz tardily last year when Amazon made its first cosmetic alter to its KDP sales tracking system in years. The KDP Sales Dashboard now displays up to 90 days worth of sales and gives the author the ability to control which books are tracked during which time periods. It fifty-fifty displays a handy nautical chart of how much coin you've earned during the specified menstruation. While this was a slight improvement, it wasn't without its bug.

The earnings in different countries aren't converted to a single currency, which ways you accept to break out a calculator or do some internet research to determine your true earnings. It also fails to take borrows into business relationship in the earnings chart. To determine how much y'all earned from borrows, y'all have to await two weeks past the stop of the month to look at Amazon's densely-packed spreadsheet that would requite some accountants headaches. Fortunately for self-published authors, there are several pieces of software that overcome KDP'south limitations.

The following five add-ons each accept their pros and cons. Some are free, while others require a monthly or yearly payment. Read on to figure out which of the following tools would all-time work for your indie author business organisation:

one. Rachel Aaron's KDP Plus

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Rachel Aaron is the bestselling author of the popular 2k to 10k book, as well as the scribe of several popular fantasy series. In an effort to aid authors, she co-developed a great tool on her website called KDP Plus that authors tin can utilise to make sense of Amazon's complicated KDP spreadsheets. It's unproblematic. All you need to do is upload your KDP spreadsheets from Amazon and with the click of a button yous'll encounter a convenient graph that displays your number of sales, borrows, and free downloads.

KDP Plus is convenient and free. If yous need to get a quick total of your number of sales on Amazon during the last calendar year, and then this is probably your best bet. It can help with your long-term tracking while assuasive you lot to run into calendar month-to-month results in a more digestible way than Amazon provides.

While the system works peachy for 12 files or so at once, it gets a little buggy after that, despite claims that yous can add together upwards to 20 spreadsheets. Y'all can't import spreadsheets from non-Amazon retailers either, but for the vast majority of authors who sell inappreciably any copies elsewhere, KDP Plus should serve your needs well.

ii. Book Report

Book Report is the newest of the bunch, but it'due south besides the sleekest. Created past a spider web designer, the tool works like a website browser extension. Once you sign up and add the tool to your bookmarks tab, you merely visit your KDP Sales Dashboard and click on the link. Volume Report shows y'all exactly how much you've earned that day in real-time in 1 currency, as well as which books are your top sellers. It also displays a convenient pie nautical chart and so yous tin see which books are bringing in the virtually coin. Further downward the page, you can also see how many free downloads you've had for permafree or discounted titles. Boosted features include historical earnings in the last ninety days and the ability to compare the earnings of books or pen names with one another.

Since several of the tracking tools only work on PCs, this is a great alternative for Mac users. You besides don't have to provide your passwords, which is a requirement of another Mac-friendly alternative, BookTrakr. Continue in heed that Volume Study only came out, so there's no telling what kind of upgrades and support it will accept going forrard. It also but displays around 90 days of data, which is a limitation compared to longer-term trackers like KDP Plus.

If you write with multiple pen names and your business depends on knowing up-to-the-second stats, Book Report is a strong choice. The tool comes with a 2-calendar week complimentary trial and costs $10 per calendar month later that depending on how much you earn.

3. TrackerBox

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KDP Plus and Book Report are great tools for Amazon, simply what if you have significant sales on other platforms? That's where our adjacent two trackers come in. TrackerBox is one of the most popular tools out there because you can import sales from about all platforms, including Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Apple, Smashwords, Draft2Digital, and even CreateSpace. Information technology's not as flashy equally Book Report, but it'due south very user-friendly for multi-platform authors to meet everything displayed on i page.

The biggest drawback for TrackerBox is that information technology's only available for PCs, which ways that Mac users will need to infringe a Windows computer or set up some mirroring software that let them run the operating system on their device. Many authors speak highly of TrackerBox for organizing the many different spreadsheet formats provided by the various self-publishing retailers at the cease of each month. If you take a PC and significant sales on many platforms, so TrackerBox might be worth the $59.95 price tag for you. You can take it on a 45-day test bulldoze for gratuitous before you buy.

iv. BookTrakr

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BookTrakr has many similarities to TrackerBox with i key reward and one central disadvantage. Dissimilar Tracker Box, you can get your sales info from multiple channels within 24 hours instead of one time every 30 days. It also displays reviews, bestseller rankings, and shows you lot your all-fourth dimension sales for each book. The charts are easy to use and empathise with a quick glance. Best of all, the software is completely complimentary, with some authors saying that information technology's been in a "beta testing" menstruum for over two years at present.

Here'south the drawback. In gild to provide this information, you lot need to give all of your platform passwords to BookTrakr. You heard me right, yous need to trust the developers of the software with your passwords. While no authors accept e'er lodged complaints against the creators of BookTrakr, we recommend that you have whatever safety precautions possible when signing up for these kinds of services. Authors who desire Tracker Box-style sales reporting on a Mac without paying any upfront costs could consider this program, but you should first determine if you're willing to chance your passwords getting used or stolen somewhere downward the line.

5. Author Earnings Dashboard

Author Earnings Dashboard is our concluding entrant and it has several similarities to the other software on the listing. The interface is like to BookTrakr, though it just shows Amazon KDP stats and doesn't require passwords. Similarly to TrackerBox, it helps yous identify trends and then you can make necessary changes and likewise information technology'south only available for PCs. It'southward a powerful tool that shows you acquirement by championship in an piece of cake to understand graph, likewise equally an annual summary and how much revenue dissimilar books earned each calendar month.

It $9.95 for the bones version and has other levels of pricing based upon what you earn per month. Author Earnings Dashboard comes highly recommended past Hugh Howey, so it's worth a await, but newer and more expensive doesn't always mean the all-time. Information technology'south a good thought to check out some more testimonials as they start to roll in for the Author Earnings Dashboard.

Tracking Sales Lets Yous See What Works

The in a higher place five tools don't give you lot a dark-green lite to just spend all of your time tracking sales. Instead, y'all should utilise them to decrease the corporeality of time you lot spend tracking then you can put more time into your writing. Pick the tool that works for your business, then set it and forget information technology. Bank check it only when necessary. Get in, become out, and and so go back to piece of work.