Documentation

Lightning Source

Download your title metadata and sales reports from Lightning Source for import into Royalties HQ.

This guide shows you how to download your title metadata and sales reports from your Lightning Source account, ready to import into Royalties HQ.

Log in to Lightning Source

Log in to your Lightning Source account at myaccount.lightningsource.com.

Make sure you use the main Reports section, not the ‘Reporting – Classic’ option.

Download your titles

To download a full export of your title metadata:

  1. In the side menu, under Reports, click Titles (or go directly to myaccount.lightningsource.com/Reports/Titles)
  2. Under Full Metadata Export, click Download report
  3. Save the CSV file and email it to us

Download your sales reports

We recommend using the monthly sales reports that Lightning Source emails you rather than downloading them manually from the dashboard. This approach makes it easier to maintain a consistent archive of your sales data.

You can set up an email filter (in Gmail or similar) to automatically save Lightning Source sales files to a dedicated folder. This keeps your sales reports organised and ready for import. See Zapier’s guide to saving email attachments to cloud storage for instructions covering Gmail, Outlook, Dropbox, and OneDrive, or this guide for saving Gmail attachments to Google Drive.

Tip: Configure your email rule to rename the file to include the sales month (e.g., “Lightning-Source-Sales-2024-03.xls”). Lightning Source does not include the month in the filename by default in the sames compensation files that they send via email, which can make it difficult to identify files in Royalties HQ when you have multiple uploads with identical names.

Download compensation statements manually

Alternatively, you can download sales reports directly from the Lightning Source dashboard:

  1. Go to Reports > Compensation
  2. Scroll down to the Compensation Statements panel
  3. Select the year and month
  4. Click the CSV download link for each file (there are usually four report types per month)

Unlike the emailed reports, these filenames already include the month and year.

Important: Do not edit sales files

It is important that you do not edit the content of your Lightning Source sales files. Modifying the data may prevent the file from being imported into Royalties HQ. You can rename the file without opening it.

Next steps

Once you have your files ready: