Before you get started with Royalties HQ, it is useful to familiarise yourself with a few of our core concepts.
Inputs and outputs #
At the most basic level, Royalties HQ receives two inputs from distributors:
- Sales data
- Publisher income data
Following a royalty run, there are two outputs for each rights holder:
- Royalty data (the royalty statement)
- Amount owed (the bill)
Reconciling sales data with publisher income #
Central to Royalties HQ is the concept of reconciling sales data with publisher income.
- Sales data refers to the sales reports that you receive from your distributors or your own e-commerce sales. Sales data is typically in the currency of the marketplace where the sale was made.
- Publisher income is the payments you receive from those distributors. Publisher income is typically in the currency of your publishing company’s country.
Royalties HQ reconciles the two in a way that is similar to accounting systems. Because of this, no manual currency conversion is required. You upload your sales data, link it with publisher income, and Royalties HQ converts the currency of each sales line automatically.
Sales lines #
A sales line typically represents one row in a spreadsheet/report from your distributor or sales channel. Each sales line is for one ISBN, in one marketplace, in one month.
Title formats #
The book publishing industry refers to “titles” however this term is often used interchangeably with specific editions or formats of a title. In Royalties HQ, we are specific. A “title” is the ‘parent’ record and it can have multiple formats, e.g. paperback, ebook, audiobook, etc. we call these title formats.
Net receipts #
‘Net receipts’ is the amount of income that a sales line or title format has generated in income, after all costs and discounts/commissions are deducted. Typically, it is related to the amount received in your publisher bank account for the sale.