How to interpret amazon rankings?

Pisco Sour said:

Hi

My debut novel is on pre-order with Amazon.co.uk. I think my publisher put it on there today or yesterday. So I scroll down and see in the info: 'amazon bestsellers rank' 107, 296 (looks like it keeps changing). Nothing on the .COM site.

What does this 'ranking' actually mean? I'm an unknown, newbie author and there are gazillions of books on amazon right? I'm not deluded into thinking there's been a mad rush for my book, but all the same i'm intrigued.

Thanks for any insights.

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It's very mysterious. Trying to work sales out from Amazon rankings is like telling the future from pigeon entrails. They're all relative, so it depends on the time of year, etc, etc.

It should, though, be possible to get the exact number of preorders. I got a spreadsheet today with our preorders on it, updated weekly. They're your 'sales' and as such are reported exactly to your publisher. So ask them?

On one of my other forums, someone posted the # of sales equivalent. I can't find it for the life of me now. If I find it, I'll repost!

It is VERY mysterious, it refreshes hourly, so while you *might* hit the amazon best sellers list last hour, you might not this hour. Which sucks because you might miss hitting the top 100 because you didn't check it at the right time!

Good luck with your book!

Until you are in the top 50,000 of all books/.com it doesn't really mean very much as far as I can tell.

Your rating at that level will fluctuated just from another books moving around even if its sales stay steady.

But generally even one sale pushes one to 50,000 -- them you drop gradually until you get the next sale.

My book came out just over a month ago (and I'm pretty sure it's not selling very well). I've been checking the ranking on a regular basis since it came out, and generally what I'll see is a steady descent over a few days (maybe a decrease in ranking of 50,000/day or so - approx), then suddenly it'll jump up to say 100,000, then start sliding back down. I assume that jump means, uhh, one copy was bought. This is on amazon.com, mind you. I recently started looking at amazon.ca sometimes, and the ranking seems more consistent.

Pisco Sour said:

Okay, I get that there is a mysterious amazon fairy! But if I'm thinking correctly if my book drops from 107k to say, 109k it means that other books are overtaking it in sales, yes? If it goes to 105k then it's selling steadily?

Or perhaps I should stop trying to figure this out.

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I really think it's best to stop trying to figure it out. If other books are overtaking it in sales it might be by 1 copy; it might be that the whole market is up or down, so that you're still selling the same number of copies but your rank is different; it's a crap shoot.

You should have real numbers available to you somehow, even if they are (as I suspect) a month in arrears.

It's partly about speed of sales as most best seller lists are, so when one person buys your book but then no one buys your book for a few days it drops very rapidly, another sale and it spikes back up. Every single book has a ranking and they go up and down with sales.

Some people have bought your book on pre-order! That's what it means! Otherwise it would be at 4 million or something like that. The lower it is the better.

SK0609 said:

On one of my other forums, someone posted the # of sales equivalent.

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There is no real X rank = Y sales thing, sadly

If your book sells twenty on one day/hour, and another five sell 100 your rank is one thing. If the next day/hour, you sell twenty and those books sell none, but other books sells some other number....your rank will be different for the same sales.

Its only use is a general ball park guide. And bragging rights if you get in the top ten for your overall (not sub sub) genre


I do hear tell of an author who figured out how it works and when his book released he got friends etc to buy a book at exactly the right time so as to affect his ranking best. I have no idea if this is a) true or b) possible. But said author did launch himself into bestseller status (whether it was that or not that did it is open to speculation)

Check out www.novelrank.com. It's not accurate (it underestimates, sometimes quite dramatically!) and shouldn't be taken literally, but it's fun and highly addictive! If your book is not on it you can list it yourself.

SK0609 said:

On one of my other forums, someone posted the # of sales equivalent. I can't find it for the life of me now. If I find it, I'll repost!

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There is no fixed relationship between number of sales and Amazon rank, so the post you refer to isn't going to be accurate.

Amazon's rankings compare books to one another. If one book sells a copy it moves up, thereby displacing the books around it which haven't sold anything.

If a book sells a hundred copies it moves further up than a book which has only sold one. But they don't move up a hundred places and one place: they move up relative to the other books which are and are not selling.

There is no accurate way to predict what your sales are by looking at your Amazon ranking. All you know is that if your book has a ranking there it's probably sold a copy or more, and the higher up it goes, the more it's likely to have sold.

aruna said:

Check out www.novelrank.com. It's not accurate (it underestimates, sometimes quite dramatically!) but it's fun and highly addictive!

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Novelrank is horribly inaccurate. Have fun playing with it, but please don't rely on it for any information.

I think Amazon introduced novel and author rankings because they felt the level of sanity in the the author community was still too high and they really needed to work on making us all even crazier.

I have a peek now and again, but really that way madness lies. It's easy to get obsessed - with a number whose significance isn't clear and that there's little you can do to change.

Only the actual sales numbers you get when your publisher sends you your royalty statement are solid and useful.

Concentrate on your promo and your writing and don't spend time fretting over that number.

My observations - more than 1 ranking

Pisco Sour said:

Hi

My debut novel is on pre-order with Amazon.co.uk. I think my publisher put it on there today or yesterday. So I scroll down and see in the info: 'amazon bestsellers rank' 107, 296 (looks like it keeps changing). Nothing on the .COM site.

What does this 'ranking' actually mean? I'm an unknown, newbie author and there are gazillions of books on amazon right? I'm not deluded into thinking there's been a mad rush for my book, but all the same i'm intrigued.

Thanks for any insights.

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I only have 1 book, so this is all I have to go on ... but my kindle sales vs paperback vary greatly....

• Kindle- "Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,399 Paid in Kindle Store"
• Paperback - rank is "#1,913,826 in Books"

You can click on my Amazon links below and scroll down to see where it is relative to that number now.

Kindle
Paperback

What I've seen....
If I normally sell 0-1 books/day, and suddenly sell 2...the rank will jump 200,000-400,000 places

But if I'm already averaging 2 per day, and sell 4 in a day, the rank jumps about 50,000 - 100,000

And so on...the rank jumps get smaller and smaller with each average sale change.


Hope that helps!

You're a stronger author than I am....

Pisco Sour said:

Hmmm, I'll certainly bear that in mind. I haven't checked my page and not intending to unless I'm showing it off to someone, but it'll be interesting to see how much I've deviated from 107k when the time comes. Thanks for sharing!

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I'll confess - If I'm having a good sales day - I'll check it hourly!
Refresh-refresh-refresh-refresh-refresh

Best of Luck with your first book!

Yeah I think Novel rank is going to give you more of a hint about what's going on than looking at the ranking. Novel rank is known for being notoriously inaccurate but I think that is mainly for people selling a LOT of books, or selling very fast. It's known for under-reporting not over-reporting and tends to be more accurate the less you're selling from what I hear. (I'm just going on anecdotal evidence from other writers and not any inside knowledge about novel rank. )

Becky Black said:

I think Amazon introduced novel and author rankings because they felt the level of sanity in the the author community was still too high and they really needed to work on making us all even crazier.

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Yup.

Older threads on this topic have more posts, but probably no more information:


https://www.google.com/search?q="Amazon+ranking"+site%3Aabsolutewrite.com

https://www.google.com/search?q="Amazon+rank"+site%3Aabsolutewrite.com