GG asked:  Okay, as I said, I'm a little slow, but we get a royalty on any ORDER placed by any bookstore, store, whatever, wherever, from sea to shining sea and across the fruited plains, right?

If PA fills the order, or Ingram, if that is where the order is placed, yes, royalties are earned.   PA has stated that their policy is that they don't pay the royalty until the book has been paid for by whomever ordered it.  Remember their infamous statement that sometimes bookstores don't pay for 90 days...?  For whatever it's worth that is not how it's stated in the PA contract however.

Now whether you actually receive the royalty from PA depends on how they are going to treat returns.  PA could reserve, meaning hold back, any amount they want to in order to cover returned books.

They could reserve the entire amount of the royalties earned.  They could reserve 50%.  They could reserve 0% and just assume that within the six months the royalty period covers, any books that were going to be returned would have been returned. 

Here's an example, let's say that you sold 100 books in the prior six months and 20 were returned.  That would be an actual 20% return rate.  So if you sold 150 books this royalty period, the publisher would withhold 20% of the royalties due to you.  Those withheld royalties would then be adjusted to reflect the actual return rate and you would be paid the difference or a greater amount would be withheld if the actual returned rate was more than 20%.

In theory PA could withhold the entire amount of the royalty earned on books at the 5% discount, remember that discount is what they offer on books that are returnable.  They owe the royalty.  The author has earned the royalty, but PA could wait an entire royalty period to pay it.  Eventually PA has to pay that royalty if the books are not returned.  But "eventually" could be up to a year, because I believe that's how long Ingram accepts returns. 

Dee

Oh and on the return policy - it sucks.

They reduced the discount to 5% that means the bookstore is LOSING money just to STOCK it in the first place, just to carry it for that matter.  They are not going to stock your book especially now, because the discount is very very poor.

Just thought everyone should know.

And thanks Georgie for the congrats.

I still see people are asking about the discounts on PA books. Simple..

1.) Orders placed through PublishAmerica's bookstore get 40-50% off but NO RETURNS.

2.) Orders placed through Ingrams, Lightening Source, whomever, gets a 5% (that's 5 % not 50%) discount and are returnable.