Comments on: Book Rankings

By: Daniel Asamota

Daniel Asamota — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:41:23 +0000

You know what is the deal with rankings. It’s like my first book never did in their words rank well, yet it’s still available and I see ‘USED’ copies being sold all over the net. Yet my company claims I haven’t sold any books! I’m getting ready to sue their asses but I’m really starting to see the shady side of publishing. I’m with Xlibris now and I’m praying that they’ll deal more honestly with me.

By: Daniel Asamota

Daniel Asamota — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:15:50 +0000

Man, I’m obsessed with rankings too. How do you guys find them out? Eitherway, let me in on the gag. I need a good laugh too.

By: dan hardy

dan hardy — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:30:38 +0000

It does change rapidly. One day I am 3 million and the next I am 54K.. It has changed multiple times a day. It has only been out a week and I find myself drinking more. Anyone for a shot lol. Any ideas on a good marketing plan?

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By: Gena Showalter

Gena Showalter — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:20:09 +0000

I’ve haven’t gotten a blow-by-blow of what was wrong in private email — ask me again after the book’s been out a few weeks — but I think I’d prefer it to the public “I wanted to vomit and die after reading this.” Or, maybe not. Let’s think this through. Maybe other people would buy the book just to see what caused the reviewer to hate the book so much, which results in sales and perhaps finding readers who love your work. Readers, talk to us. Have you ever bought a book after reading a truly horrid review, just to see what was so bad?

By: Kate Rothwell

Kate Rothwell — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:18:28 +0000

whoops sent the last too fast. I lifted this from my blog [link above] Sandy Blair gave me the info.

Ingrams1-615-213-6803. Have your ISBN number ready. Rule of thumb…multiply the sales number they give you x 20 to get the average total sales to date. You can then guess-timate your sell-through to date

The recording will tell the instock number, the number sold for the week, sold the previous week and the number sold during the whole year. If your book is a 2004, just add the last and first numbers for the amount of your print-run — assuming your publisher only uses Ingrams for distribution.

Baker and Taylor is the other big distributor. Ingrams and B&T are the only two biggies left in the USA.

By: Kate Rothwell

Kate Rothwell — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:12:35 +0000

So which is worse? Short public stinky reviews or the long emails in which the writer tells you, chapter by chapter, what you did wrong? (I’ve gotten two of those.)

By: Gena Showalter

Gena Showalter — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:04:06 +0000

So my question to you is, what’s Ingrams phone number? I’ve got to get in on this calling thing. It fits right in with my other addictions.

By: Kate Rothwell

Kate Rothwell — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:02:58 +0000

Maybe it’s possible not to read reviews of one’s own work? I wouldn’t know. Maybe that comes later in one’s career?

So far I haven’t had any real horrible stinkers. . . It’s only a matter of time — or maybe the next book.

By: Kate Rothwell

Kate Rothwell — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:00:50 +0000

amazon numbers means NOTHING. NOTHINNNNNNNGGGG. And your numbers won’t change more than once a day unless you’re in the top 10k anyway.

You know that little “there are 21 copies left of this book” thingy?
Okay, I was at position #21,000 (20,999 books were selling better than mine.)
An hour later I checked — because I didn’t know about that 10K rule — and it said “there are 20 copies of this book available” and the book’s rank was 7,000.

There. Now if you want to go truly nuts, call whichever company your publisher uses for distribution — either Whatsit & T or Ingrams. The recording at Ingrams asks for your ISBN number and then tells you how many orders they’ve gotten from their warehouse stock.

I sure hope that after the first few books, authors don’t do this checking and googling and calling. It’s sapping!

I hear some agents do this sort of thing for you. Hmmmm

Bad reviews: Print them out. Burn them. Spit on them. forget them.