Sailing up the Amazon(.co.uk)

[rj_anderson]

I know that Amazon sales rankings mean little to nothing in the grand scheme of things, so I wasn't planning to pay much attention to mine. I noted that when my book first went up I was somewhere in the mid 400,000's, and was content to leave it at that... but it seems some people in my family are a bit more interested. I got this message tonight from my brother (who placed the very first preorder himself, bless him):

Subject: ... and moving up!
From: Peter Anderson
Date: 10:04 PM
To: "Anderson, Rebecca"

*Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank:* 144,778 in Books

And that was all.

I suspect there can't be more than three or four people who have preordered the book at this point, so what does that say for the 250,000 or so books with a lower ranking than mine? There have to be a whole lot of books not being bought out there...

ETA the following morning:



Aw, you guys... *toes dirt bashfully*

Comments

[mandyhubbard.livejournal.com]

ha, thats so funny! I remember, before i ever had an agent, lauren barnholdt saying, "I feel sorry for the poor soul in spot # 996,345. (Or whatever). And I laughed.

but seriously, amazon is SO huge. ONe sale can drop your rank by 100K. Its crazy.

[m-stiefvater.livejournal.com]

What she said. I zoomed up to 2,000 or something the first day of my preorders because it changes from day to day. If you sell one copy in a day, it will immediately shoot you up to 100,000. You could go crazy watching them. Plus . . . my editor says such a small percentage of YA/ MG sales are from Amazon that I don't have to give it a second thought!

(but it's fun anyway!)