My wife is a professor in a field where they regularly publish books. "Zero royalties for the first N copies sold" appears to be common in the academic publishing contract world. It's a mess.
I did end up seeing royalty checks, though not until the book was translated from English to Italian. For some reason, it sold comparatively well in Italian, pushing me over the threshold to earn royalities. The one actual royalty check I saw for my book was a grand total of $0.02. I never cashed the check and keep it in a desk drawer somewhere.