I wrote a book called "Coming Home to Jerusalem" published by Simon
and Schuster in June, 2000. A paperback was published by Touchstone in
July, 2001. Can anyone tell me how many copies have sold to date?

I dont know the answer but am commenting when GOOGLE-ANSWERS has just
answered a question of mine which was " Why cant I comment till
researcher has first answered question"  by explaining why it was
appropriate not to allow any comments till question was answered. If
this comment then appears now then it should not have as it is against
the policy of GOOGLE, and supposedly  software barred.  Perhaps
although I am writing a comment it will not be allowed to appear until
question has been answered by researcher. In this case kindly
disregard this comment

Sorry I am wrong, and stupid as well . I now see that GOOGLE will
allow me to comment on a question as long as question has not been
locked by researcher.

 This then would seem to make irrelevant a comment from someone other
than me  earlier today who said GOOGLE was unfair not to allow
comments first before an answer on the basis that researcher should be
able to research everything for an answer,  even those from
commenter!!!

I had a quick look at the reviews of your book on the Amazon website
and most of the readers consider it to be an excellent book; and since
there are almost 70 reviews there then it must be selling very well.

But the only people who can accurately tell you how your book is
selling are your publishers. You have presumably been told the initial
print run of both editions of your book, but do not know how many are
still in storage at the publisher's warehouse, how many have been
delivered to bookstores but not yet sold, and how many have been
delivered to bookstores and sold to members of the public.

If you have a royalty deal, then this information should be available
on your royalty cheques however small. If you do not have a royalty
deal but settled for a one-off payment, they should still be able to
supply this information to you as a matter of professional courtesy.
Talk either to the editor you worked with or the Accounts Department
of each of the publishing companies. They may or may not wish to
discuss reprinting the book with you.

If for some reason you cannot do this - they are unresponsive
inefficient or hostile perhaps - then take the matter up with the
Society of Authors. As a Briton I don't have their address to hand but
they are in all the standard reference books. And if you are not a
member of the Society of Authors Join Them Immediately! They will be
able to help you in a lot of ways.

Curiously checking amazon, I noted that you have obtained excellent
reviews for this book. I am on hold for buying books at the moment due
to the immense backlog I'm trying to get through but will consider
buying your book later this year.  Curious as to why you can't just
get the information your are requesting from AGOOG directly from your
publishers??

I'm a long-time computer book author, a former Amazon.com employee,
and operator of a book information Web site. The question about number
of sales sounds initially simple, but it's unfortunately hideously
complicated. As one of the previous commenters noted, why can't you
just ask your publisher? As an author, I know that publishers,
especially larger ones, are extremely difficult to pin down. However,
you should be receiving regular royalty statements that lists exact
sales broken out into categories.

A new service started by an overseas firm is measuring book sales in
the United States by actually tracking sales at thousands of
locations. However, their information, which should be incredibly
accurate compared to any other source, will only be available by
subscription at extremely high rates that only publishers and book
chains would pay for.

If you are asking this question because you believe that your
publisher is inaccurately reporting sales figures, you can contact a
book sales auditing firm, of which there are several, mostly in New
York. Your publisher's contract and general trade practices allow
authors to audit the books of their publisher to determine whether
sales reported and royalties paid are accurate. Many of the auditing
firms work on contigency rather than receive payment. They often take
33 percent of the additional payment received after audit.

As many have noted in the music business, audits typically uncover
underpayments. It's true in the book business as well. No author I
know who has ever challenged the numbers in a royalty statement has
discovered that the publisher reported the precise number correctly or
walked away without additional money. Let me note that I'm not saying
that all numbers are false, but rather in cases where authors I know
CHALLENGED the numbers because they thought they were off, they
typically were.

One author I know, who has published many children's books, recently
received a substantial sum of money from French translations that were
never paid to him. Why? The publisher was bought and sold and bought
and sold, and they lost track of the French agent collecting money for
them. The agent had the money in a bank account; the author had to
push the publisher which tracked it down and then made him a large
payment. They tried to take their commission out of it. He agreed to
not pursue legal action (contracts state this is the publisher's
responsibility, typically), and they paid him the whole amount. He had
already lost a considerable amount in the drop in the French franc
over the last few years.

Extrapolating from your Amazon sales rank, I'd estimate the book has
sold less than 10,000 copies in all outlets. The number of reviews you
have on Amazon speaks more to the subject matter of the book and how
people feel about it (and desire to express their opinions) rather
than sales.

Certainly you can have an outside auditor check your publisher
numbers. I know of at least one who works strictly on a contingency
fee, 1/3 of the recovery if I recall.