Above are some of the locations where people have purchased Corruptor in print form. How do I know? Well, read on.

So Amazon has a new feature for authors in the sales section called “Bookscan”, which tracks the location and amount of books sold the prior week by companies using bookscan. I don’t know if this tracks store purchases, or simply sales online or even if it’s only orders taken on Amazon. The point is, this is a HUGE step for authorial rights. Why? Let me explain.

An author must implicitly trust their publisher to properly report their earnings. It’s very expensive for an author to hire an accountant to go over their book sales, and it is done at the author’s expense. This new Bookscan feature on amazon allows for a general idea regarding book sales and location of sales.

It’s hard for writers to track this stuff. They don’t have a finger on the pulse of distribution, and if a writer signs with a less-than-reputable publisher they often end of catching the wrong end of the stick. However, while it may not prevent it entirely, Bookscan does hold publishers more accountable with their sales records and such. A writer now can simply log onto Amazon’s Author Central and check out how well he or she did the previous week. I, for one, discovered that the majority of my book sales comes from Roanoke, Virginia. That also happens to be where I currently live, so my viral publicity seems to be working.

Larry Correia mentioned earlier on his FB page that his own sales have been doing well in… New York City. That’s fairly interesting, but it also helps him know his potential market (and who exactly likes his books) while opening up the figures most authors won’t see until three to six months down the road. It, I believe, can help an author budget more.

I think that this feature is a great tool for writers, and encourage any published author (self-published or otherwise) to check it out if they have an Amazon Author page.