It’s important to know how far away you are from reaching the next royalty tier so you're aware of how many sales you need to make to reach it and set yourself targets.
Your royalty tier is set at the start of every month based on the total value of all the resources you have sold over the previous 12 complete months, and this will be recalculated each month.
To work out how much you need to earn to reach the next author royalty tier, you first need to download your sales data from your author dashboard.
This is only relevant for Bronze and Silver authors.
Calculating how much you need to earn on the first day of the month
By downloading your monthly sales data in Excel or similar software on the first day of the month, you can do a quick sum to add up your earnings over the past 11 months. The difference between that total and the amount you need to earn to reach the next tier level (which is £1000 for Silver and £6000 for Gold for your 12 months rolling sales GMV) is the total earnings you need to generate by the end of the current month to climb to the next royalty tier.
If you're using Excel to look at your monthly sales data, you might want to familiarise yourself with the AutoSum function to help quickly add up your earnings. You can find out more information on the AutoSum function in Excel here.
If the above doesn’t quite make sense, the wording below may help clear up any confusion:
For example:
If I am a Bronze author, and in the last 11 complete months I have made a total of £962.44. To become a Silver author, I need to earn:
£1000 - £962.44 = £37.56 in the next month
Calculating how much you need to earn mid-way through the month
If you wish to make this calculation mid-way through a month, you will need to add an extra step to your calculation. You’ll still need to add up the previous 11 complete months’ earnings, but as a further step you’ll need to add the earnings you’ve made between the start of the current month and today’s (the day you make your calculation) date. Once you’ve done this and then completed the rest of the calculation with this value, this will then give you the total earnings needed for the rest of the month to climb a tier.
For example, if today is 25 October 2021, you will need to work out your earnings between 1/11/2020 to 24/10/2021.
Subtracting this from the total you need to earn to reach the next royalty tier will give you the amount you need to earn between today (25/10/2021) and 1/11/2021 as this is when your tier level would next be calculated.
FAQs
Is my royalty tier based on my total sales or my royalty earnings?
Your royalty tier will be calculated on the total value of items sold, ie: your total sales, at the author-published price. For example: 10 items sold at £5 equates to £50 of total sales. Your royalty tier will be determined by the previous 12 months of total sales. Your royalty earnings are a separate transaction that Tes pays you after VAT and other deductions. This is the figure that varies according to your royalty tier.
What if my sales move me into a lower or higher tier in the middle of a month?
For simplicity, the rate will be set on the 1st of each month, and last for the whole month.
Aren’t there big fluctuations in sales throughout the year?
Yes - the education market is very seasonal with peaks at the beginning of the school year and different terms, and troughs during holidays. That is why the calculation is based on 12-month rolling sales, to counteract the variability.
What if I sell in US dollars?
If you sell in US dollars, you’ll see the data in your author dashboard in US dollars. The tier levels will be based on the £GBP amounts converted to dollars at that day’s rate.
You can find more information on author royalty levels here.