I logged into the members only section of the National RWA web site the other day and while on that site I came across an area where I could subscribe to the Nielsen BookScan. This is not the first time I had seen this book/subscription but I had no idea what it was. So I set out to uncover it.

Nielsen BookScan numbers are like an author's credit rating. It's an industry service for publishers that reports actual book sales by the ISBN number at retailers from across the country. It tells the naked truth about how many copies a book sells, because it produces weekly tallies electronically linked straight from thousands of cash registers across the U.S.

This is no guess, the information comes straight from the register's till. And the numbers may as well be set in stone. But it only reports about 75% of U.S. retail book sales. They don't cover sales for Wal-Mart, any book clubs, gift shops, etc.

So even if a book has sold additional copies, if it is not through the reporting outlets they will not be counted toward the authors ISBN report. Low Nielsen numbers can impact everything, including your next advance.

The more I discover about the publishing industry the less I like it and I have barely begun to submit my work. I just want to write my stories and be done with it. Let someone else worry about all this other crap.