What is SalesScanner?
If you've published to an online bookseller like KDP or Smashwords, you'll know that you can download spreadsheets with your sales figures. The problem is, it's hard to pick out trends and aggregates from an overwhelming list of figures.
SalesScanner is designed to import those spreadsheets and display the information in easy-to-read summaries.
This software does not require access to your book seller accounts.
It just imports and processes downloaded spreadsheets. None of your data is transmitted to Spacejock Software .
Which sites are supported?
Currently, Sales Scanner will import sales reports from:
• Amazon KDP (now with Prior Months' Royalties import, so you can load historical data too.)
• Google Play Store
• Smashwords (both year-to-date and the daily reports)
• Kobo
(It DID support Createspace previously, but now that all CS accounts & data are being moved to KDP, this is no longer required.)
How does it work?
It just loads the latest copy of each store's spreadsheet from a specified folder and extracts the figures.
If you edit the ASIN translation table for your books, you can aggregate the same titles from different retailers.
Quick start instructions:
Download and run the installer from the
DOWNLOAD PAGE, or grab the zip file from the same place and unpack into an empty folder.
Run the software and the settings page will show up.
Change the Download path if it's incorrect, then click OK.
The download path should match the location your browser saves files to.
Now run SalesScanner, and you'll see a blank screen. The software won't do anything until you download a report file.
Next, open the KDP dashboard in your web browser and follow these instructions:
• In your browser, go to the 'Sales Dashboard' tab on KDP
• Select 'Last 30 days' from the dropdown, and click Update. (You can use any time period).
• Next, click the Generate Report underneath the Royalties Earned table
• When the File Save dialog appears,
SAVE THE FILE instead of opening it.)
If SalesScanner is running and the download path is correct, the data should now appear.
If you want historical data, go to the Prior Months' Royalties tab on the KDP dashboard. You need to start with the latest complete month (not the current, partial month) and download from that one backwards, to the oldest you want to include. Only the 'New' report format is supported at this stage.
Don't leave any gaps in the months, because the program scans for the month before the current one, and counts backwards until it encounters a year/month which is not present, at which time it stops looking.
E.g. If you download reports for 2018-07 and 2018-05, only the 07 file will be scanned as 2018-06 is missing.
To import from
Google Play, download the second report in their dropdown list. (Sales Transaction Report.) Save this file to the same folder SalesScanner is importing from. Don't change the file name.
To import from
Kobo, download and extract the zip file containing your Kobo invoice from the Writing Life dashboard. Open the XLSX file in Excel/OpenOffice or similar, then go to the Details tab and save that sheet as CSV. Use the same filename, just set the extension to CSV instead of XLSX. (Sorry about this extra step, but the converter I use on XLS files removes blank cells so I can't do this step automatically.)
To import from
Smashwords, download the year-to-date spreadsheet. Importing of previous years is not currently supported. I will update this as we approach the end of this year.
If you view your daily sales report on Smashwords,
without changing any filters, then click the lower of the two buttons on the far right ("Download Free and Paid Books and Retailer Details for Last 30 Days) then SalesScanner will load that data too. Since this report doesn't contain any royalties, only sales numbers, Salesscanner will use the most recent royalty value for that title - even from a different retailer. This is just a guess, so if you do include these reports please bear in mind your totals may not be 100% accurate.
To set up a
Custom file:
Here's the header and one line of data from a Custom file. Cumulative isn't used. Royalty in USD only. Date should be in your system format.
The file should have a prefix of ManualSales_ and end with a .csv extension. Whatever the filename contains between those two is not important. The program will read them all in.
Date,Title,ReportSource,ASIN,Sales,Royalty Ea,Royalty,Cumulative
25/10/2018,[The title],e.g. StoryBundle,[CODE],62,0.8538,52.9356,62
If your titles have commas in I recommend wrapping all fields in double quotes (")
Consolidating the titles in your reports.
If you have books across several retailers, you'll see them listed in Salesscanner with all their different ASINs/ISBNs and so on. If you want them all aggregated, click Tools in SalesScanner, then Edit ASIN table.
Here's an example from my own file:
# Hal 1
B005HGAJV2,GKTYRTNRZ5G
B005HGAJV2,82539
B005HGAJV2,1230000004766
B005HGAJV2,1877034088
This shows the Amazon ASIN followed by a comma, and then each of the codes in use on other stores. (Here, it's the Google Play, Smashwords and Kobo codes, and the paperback ISBN).
After editing the file, save it and click Scan. If you got it right, all of the matching titles will now appear under a single entry, using the Amazon title.
Troubleshooting
If no data appears, make sure the program is scanning the right folder.
Failing that, check the log file. (Tools - Debug - View Log).
The Download folder in the SalesScanner settings must match the location you're saving the KDP reports to
The program doesn't store data. If you download a report containing 7 days of data, there's no point trying to view the 30 day report in SalesScanner.
If you want more, the registered version includes these additional features:
• A daily sales tab, with a sum of sales per day, and a rolling seven day average. (See at a glance if your overall sales are rising or falling.)
• A sellthrough tab showing the books in each of your series, along with the percentage of sales versus the previous book. (You need to define your series manually for now, but this is being added to the program.)
• Boxed sets will also have their sales figures incorporated into the sellthrough algorithm for each book in the set.
Features to be added:
Editing of box sets and series within the software.
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