Secrets of Amazon's best-seller lists

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ColoradoMom

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CheshireCat

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Let's look at an extreme version of what a writer can be today. The best writers take an active, entrepreneurial role in their book sales. Publishing is filled with success stories that began as self-publishing miracles.


Why do people keep repeating stuff like this? "The best writers," generally speaking, write books and let their major publishers market them.

And publishing is NOT "filled with success stories that began as self-publishing miracles."

Jeez.

Besides all that, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Amazon sales are only a very, very small percentage of total sales if your book is being marketed outside Amazon.

And chances are pretty good your publisher doesn't give a flying fig if your book cracked the top 100 on Amazon for an hour one Sunday. They still judge success by hard numbers reported to them week by week -- and placement on the New York Times Bestsellers list.

 

geardrops

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Nonetheless, authors are in it for the glory, and the visibility and bragging rights of being a "best-seller" retains the glamour of years past.

Amazon's method of ranking books remains something of a black box, with the fancy word algorithm used to describe it.

The best writers take an active, entrepreneurial role in their book sales.

Publishing is filled with success stories that began as self-publishing miracles.

:Wha:
 

susangpyp

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I agree the Amazon sales rank tells you what is working and what is not.

My book was mentioned in an article that was front-paged on Yahoo. The author never spoke to me and didn't even represent the book all that well but the book shot up to nos. 1 and 2 on Amazon (book and Kindle) for the 4 days after the Yahoo article.

On the other hand, I've turned myself inside out to be available for radio spots and articles and the sales barely moved afterward.

So in that respect Amazon sales rank helps but other than that, not so much.
 
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