On the sales report I avoid opening, and the book that came back.
If you sell something you made, there is probably one report you avoid opening.
Mine is my book sales report. My husband manages that side and gives me the occasional update. He handles the numbers, I handle not looking at them, and I think it works perfectly.
But anyway. The other day, curiosity got the better of me, and I opened one of my Amazon KDP reports. For the first time, someone had returned one of my books.
I was not taking it personally at all. Purely professional. It only took me two years to write that book, and many days of arthritis. All I could think was this: someone bought my book, received my book, and then decided it needed to leave their life.
I know returns are part of selling things. People send back shoes and kitchen appliances all the time. A book just felt different.
It felt like a brick to the stomach. A deep sadness, something like I had failed someone I would never meet. I had no idea who they were or what they expected, and I was already preparing my defence.
Then came the part I am least proud of. I was too ashamed to ask my fellow authors what a return means, so I asked AI. A machine does not look at me differently at the next publishing event. Or maybe it will. I have watched too many movies about robots taking over the world lately. We will wait and see if Will Smith can solve this problem.
But back to my return. The platforms do not tell an author why a book was returned. Maybe it arrived damaged. Maybe it was not what the reader expected. I will probably never find out, and my brain went through every possibility, made up several more and still got nowhere. Most likely I am just overanalysing again. My vira lata thoughts. I wrote about it here.
I believe readers should be able to return books that are not right for them. Keeping a book out of politeness helps no one, and I do not want to be the author who makes a reader feel guilty. Still, from the author’s side, it stinks, and it makes me doubt myself.
I would have preferred a postcard: “Dear Jessica, thank you for your literary contribution. Unfortunately, we have decided to go in another direction.”
The funny part is that a return tells me very little. It does not say whether the book is good or whether the reader enjoyed it. Nothing like unanswered questions to send me into a spiral. My reaction was far bigger than the information.
I write about the loss of felt competence, the feeling of no longer being good at something you used to do well, and this was a small version of it. I can name it and write about it, and one line in a report still made me feel graded.
What is the report you avoid opening, and what happened when you finally did?
A December note for readers
Not every reader comes to my website or to Google Books to read the first pages before buying, and I understand that. So I decided to do what every author told me not to do: Parenting Unpacked: Parenting Through the Loss of Self is in Kindle Unlimited from 1 December.
Every author I spoke to said to wait a year before adding a book. I am not waiting. December is the most beautiful time of the year, and it is also the month when we try to do everything and end in burnout. If you read with Kindle Unlimited, the book is a gift from me, at no extra cost to you.
If you would rather sample it first, you can read the first 40 pages of Parenting Unpacked for free.
