A reader sent some interesting questions about royalties, and has given me permission to answer them here:
My first novel was published nine years ago and, naturally enough, sales in the first year didn't cover the advance. Since that time I have received no royalty statements, and my then publisher has moved out of fiction. I suspect he has also sold on rights to who knows how many other firms.
Checking the web, it still seems to be selling in a whole host of countries. Of course I have no means of knowing how many copies have sold in the intervening period - the numbers may be a miniscule - but nevertheless I am intrigued.
Now that my second novel is out ( by a different publisher I hasten to add) I would be interested to find out exactly how many copies of my first book did sell. Is there any way of finding out?
First, dig out the contract you signed with your first publisher. With luck, you should have a number of clauses in the contract that might help you find out about the total sales of your first novel.
The royalties clause should state at what rate you'd be paid royalties (probably 10% of list price for a hardback and 8% for a mass-market paperback).
It should also state that you're to receive a periodic statement of sales and returns--preferably twice a year, but maybe just yearly. If that's not in your contract, you're probably out of luck.
That happened to me once (shame on my agent for not demanding it, and shame on me for not realizing it). It took relentless pestering of my publisher to get some rough idea of my sales--their policy, I learned, was not to report sales at all until and unless the book earned out its advance. I was very glad to escape from this publisher.
You may still be able to get the sales figures, however, if you have a clause permitting you to inspect the publisher's books. The inspection clauses may be time-limited, however. But that should enable you to see how many copies were printed, shipped, returned, and sold. You should also be able to find any record of rights sales to other publishers.
Next, look for the clause about going out of print and proceeds from remaindered copies. If the publisher decided to take your book out of print, he should have notified you and given you an opportunity to purchase copies at some steep discount--probably the same rate as he would charge to the jobber who took the copies off his hands. (When you see hardback recent best-sellers on sale for $4.95, those are remaindered copies, and the jobber probably paid a buck apiece for them.)
When the UK edition of one of my novels went out of print, I bought a hundred copies at 17 cents each; I think I still have a few in the basement. Many publishers, however, don't advise you when you're out of print until the next (and final) royalty statement.
If you're seeing your novel on sale overseas, they may be remaindered copies. Or the publisher may have simply sold batches to overseas booksellers. If so, the royalties clause should have specified the rate at which you'd be paid for such sales.
By the way, when a book goes out of print, you can ask the publisher either to reprint it or to return the rights to you. This is routine, and you're then free to find another publisher who might want to take a chance on it.
I did this with Eyas, which had done poorly with Bantam Books. Del Rey Books took it, paid me a much smaller advance than Bantam had, and put it on the market again. Alas, it again did poorly, failing to earn out even the modest advance. (And it's still the best novel I've written, at least in my opinion.)
I don't hold out much hope that you'll actually get an accurate sales count from your old publisher, but the contractual items I've mentioned would be your best bet.
If you'd still like to see your first novel in print again, your best bet would be to formally obtain the rights from your former publisher, and then submit a copy of the book to a print-on-demand publisher. The POD publisher would scan your novel page by page and then print new copies as orders came in. I did this with seven of my out-of-print novels, and while they don't make much, people do buy a few copies every year.
Good luck!
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