Frequently Asked Questions

Tracking Sales and Royalty

Author dashboard is a place where authors can access all the relevant information related to their published books. This is the place to track the sales of their books and earnings accrued. And also to enter information related to earning remittance, marketing options etc. Author Dashboard can be accessed by logging in to your Pothi.com account, clicking on your username on the top-right of the page, then clicking on "Author Dashboard".

Log in to your Pothi.com account and go to your author dashboard. To reach there, click on your username on the top-right of the page, and then click on "Author Dashboard". Make sure you are logged in, else you won't see your username.

Then click on the Section "My Sales and Earning Report".

You will be able to see your Sales Summary, Sales Details and Payment History there.

When a book is sold (paid for and shipped) on Pothi.com, the author's earning gets added to the balance in the author's account. This can be tracked on the Author Dashboard.

For authors receiving remittance within India, if the balance at the end of the month is Rs. 200 or more, it is transferred to the author by the 15th of the next month. If the balance in the account of author is less than Rs. 200, but greater than Rs. 100, the transfer takes place at the end of the quarter. For earnings of less than Rs. 100, you can ask for the amount to be remitted to you by writing to us at info@pothi.com. This request can be made only if the royalties remain unchanged, and below Rs. 100, for three months.

For authors receiving remittance outside India, the transfer is done if the balance at the end of the month is Rs. 1000 or more.

Any applicable TDS will be deducted from the earnings. To ensure that you receive the TDS certificate for such deductions, which can be adjusted against your income tax while filing returns, make sure you have entered the correct PAN details in your remittance information.

You should ensure that your remittance information is updated and correct on the author dashboard in order to receive your payments on time. If a payment goes to the wrong account or is reverted because of incorrect remittance information, Pothi.com will not be responsible for re-transfer.

The following options are available for receiving author earnings:

  • Direct Bank Transfer (For Indian Authors): You need to enter your bank account details along with NEFT code in your "Remittance Information". The author earnings will be transferred directly to the account. Please also enter your PAN so that your TDS is deducted at a lower rate and you receive a TDS certificate at the end of the financial year. You can then adjust the TDS against your income tax, while filing returns.
  • Paypal (For non-Indian Authors): You need to have/create a paypal account and enter the e-mail id associated with it in your "Remittance Information". This method is available only if your Paypal account is not Indian. RBI regulations and Paypal policies do not allow transfer an Indian merchant to make transfer to other Indian paypal accounts. All royalties remitted through paypal will be considered as payments to non-Indian authors and will be subject to a 20% TDS deduction accordingly.

You should ensure that your remittance information is updated and correct on your author dashboard in order to receive your payments in time. If a payment goes to a wrong account or is reverted because of incorrect remittance information, Pothi.com will not be responsible for re-transfer.

Log into your Pothi.com account, click on your username on the top right corner, then click on "Author Dashboard" to go to your author dashboard.

Then click on the section "Enter/Update Remittance Information". Enter the relevant details there.

For copies sold on Pothi.com, orders will show up in the Sales Report after the order is marked as completed. This happens after the order is paid for, shipped and we have received the shipping information from production.

If your book is in distribution and the sale has happened through a partner site, then it will reflect after we have received the payment from the partner, which can take up to 10 weeks and varies from partner to partner. Sometimes, before we receive the payment, the sale may still show up on the dashboard under the "Pending Payment Distribution Sales". It will move to completed sales and royalty will accrue once we have received payment from the partner.

To respect the privacy of the buyers, we cannot reveal this information. You are encouraged to include your contact information in the book so that the readers who do want to get in touch can contact you directly. If we receive any communication from the buyers that is directed towards you, we will try our best to convey it to you.