Comments on: Figuring out the Amazon Sales Rank

By: gene bregman

gene bregman — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 22:49:01 +0000

I thought your article and reader’s comments were of interest regarding the mysterious world of Amazon sales ranks. I put a link from my site to yours because I thought it would be helpful to my readers, generally new at online book selling. Thanks.

Gene Bregman

By: Kevin Sivils

Kevin Sivils — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 01:46:02 +0000

I am not sure how useful Amazon’s Sales Rankings are at times, but they are certainly interesting to watch. Lately I am more concerned with where my books fall in the search listing when a customer is looking for a book in the topics I have authored books in.

The long tail of Amazon kicks in when a book moves up in the search listing. When one of my books makes it to the first page of listings for a given search, sales pick up a bit more. To the extent Sales Rankings play a role in this, I cannot say, but I will say as my average Sales Ranking for a book increases, it moves up a little further in the search results which equals a few more sales, which equals a little higher average Sales Ranking, etc.

I do use RankTracer’s service to estimate sales based on Amazon Sales Rankings for the one book I don’t have published with CreateSpace (CreateSpace provides hourly sales updates).

The other reason I pay attention to sales rankings is to try to judge the impact of an on-line marketing strategy or the impact of my e-newsletter.

The more cynical side of my brain thinks Amazon just likes to mess with the minds of self-published authors and uses its Sales Rankings to do so.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:52:13 +0000

Oops. Well thanks all the same, Chris. I’m glad you think it’ll make a perfect gift.

By: Chris Lee

Chris Lee — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:49:54 +0000

It was my fault. Through a series of dumb moves, I added it twice to my cart and didn’t notice because I was buying other stuff as well.

It’s OK, though. It will make a perfect gift for someone.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:53:48 +0000

Hi Chris, how did that happen? I hope you didn’t need to pay twice unnecessarily.

JMV, thanks for taking the time to rate my book on Amazon. That’s hugely appreciated.

By: Chris Lee

Chris Lee — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:49:26 +0000

Well, I know I helped that rank in my own way. I own two copies (albeit accidentally).

By: Brian D. Hawkins

Brian D. Hawkins — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:36:22 +0000

It seems like Amazon could learn a little from the New York Times Best Seller List.

By: JMV

JMV — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:35:07 +0000

I purchased my copy of your book from Amazon.ca. I purchase a large majority of my books from there, but I’ve never even thought of leaving a review before.

I’m on my way to leave my review right now!

By: Suhasini

Suhasini — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:25:59 +0000

I am sure Logo Design Love will do very well as I have read few chapters of it. All the best.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:17:02 +0000

It is very trend-focused, Jon. Unless Amazon divulges overall sales figures, I can’t think of another way (off the top of my head) to give some kind of indication.

Good to know, Gareth. If I remember correctly, I’ve previously bought items from Amazon.com and had them shipped to the UK, cheaper than they’d be here. Maybe that was just because the item wasn’t available on the Amazon.co.uk, and not because of my superior cunning.

I think so, Andy, but if enough authors were to put their sales data together (i.e., Amazon ranking for one week combined with weekly sales figures from the publisher), it’d be possible to get a more accurate Sales Rank picture.