Saturday 13 October 2012

Amazon Rankings!

Amazon have come up with another way to make authors neurotic. Amazon Author Rankings - a new phenomenon introduced the other day - will tell the eager writer exactly how poorly they are doing in relation to others.
For instance mine are as follows: All books 5835
                                                   e-books 2409
                                                   fiction     1946
                                                   romance   776
                                                   historical   315
These are supposedly updated hourly so in theory one could see a trend - probably down rather than up.
This is on the Amazon.com rankings -no doubt there is another set for Amazon UK.
I already spend far too much time checking sales data and rankings of  my books on various lists - now I shall be feverishly viewing my personal rankings as well.
Being where I am in the rankings isn't too bad - there are, after all, over one million authors to be ranked. What must those in the  hundred thousands feel like? They might well have written a blindingly good book - it just hasn't sold very well.
I know I shall be depressed if my rankings fall and pleased when they go up - but does it really matter? Unless I magically arrive in the top one hundred - the list that is shown to the public - only I can see my position. I'm sure sales will improve for the magic one hundred - but for anyone else? I doubt it.
Is this an excellent marketing tool, like KDP, or just another idea from Amazon to make writer's produce more books more often? What do you think? Will this innovation help or hinder writers?
 Fenella

2 comments:

  1. Hi,

    It's all a case of swings & roundabouts at Ammo! One can be flying high on one rank system and not even feature on another. One can sell tons of books worldwide on the various Amazon platforms and reap the reward, and again ranking will vary per platform. I'm doing well in Italy at the mo, but tomorrow I could bottom out. My US sales are paltry compared to UK, when in fact the opposite was the case six months ago. Rankings are best taken with a pinch of salt - Ammo keep shifting the author goal posts. If one's books are selling at a steady pace why worry about ranking? ;)

    best
    F

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  2. I know you're right -but if there's a list I have to check it! that said, the only rankings I care about are the book related ones - the ones that show I'm earning decent royalties for a change. Thanks for dropping in.

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