jpskewedthrone | Reserve For Returns

I must apologize to everyone for my previous freak-out episode journal entry about my first sales report. Oh, the freak-out was totally for real and lasted pretty much the entire afternoon, from mail delivery to my game meeting with

pbray and

jennifer_dunne. But then, they explained to me what the "reserve for returns" lines meant.

See, I took them to mean actual returns. As in, books not sold and thus returned so that the author can be buried in a crypt made of his or her own book.

However, it has been explained that the books sold on this report are essentially books that DAW can guarantee without a doubt have been sold. The reserve for returns are those books that are actually still out there either:

a) On a shelf in a bookstore;
b) In a warehouse (but not DAWs warehouse);
c) Actually in someone's house, preferrably being loved, because someone actually bought it.

So, more books have probably sold than it would seem on the list. I realize (now) that that's what most of you are saying. But its hard to get through the panic when there's a line that says: US Regular Sales, followed by a heart-stoppingly small number. And all other lines contain the word "return".

But I'm happy to report that the reserve for returns line has a significantly HIGH number. So there's hope. I do not need to be shot. Yet.

But I do apologize for the public freak-out. Thanks for the instant hugs and well-wishing, as well as the attempts to explain. I need to remember that I'm still new at this and should not instantly panic when something new and foreign appears.