Sell Your Book on Amazon

Here is a recent review I received for my latest book:

Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret "How-to" Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers

Brent Sampson’s “Sell Your Book on Amazon” is the book I have been waiting for so I can understand how Amazon ranks my books and how I can better promote my books on Amazon. As an author myself, my books have been listed on Amazon, but I had no idea I had any control over how popular they could become.

While I had already been doing a couple things Brent Sampson suggests, primarily writing book reviews, I learned there is a great deal more I can and should do. Brent Sampson takes us step-by-step through the jungle of Amazon. He explains to us about creating an Amazon-Connect account, which includes a profile to show up on your book-detail pages. He explains in detail all the aspects of the Book-Detail page for a book. And he provides instructions for all those features on Amazon such as writing book reviews, participating in listmania, creating tags, and “So You’d Like To” guides. Throughout the book, he gives excellent advice. Not being the most computer-savvy individual, I never would have figured out on my own the many features he discusses. I guarantee “How to Sell Your Book on Amazon” will sit by my computer for a long time and be frequently referred to as I learn to use Amazon to my advantage.

My greatest revelation from reading “Sell Your Book on Amazon” is that Amazon is not only a bookstore but a networking site for authors. I have already been promoting my book at other sites like Myspace, Facebook and Shelfari, but I now realize Amazon is a fantastic networking site to meet readers, and to group and associate my book with other similar and more popular books in my subject area. I am guessing it is far more effective and lucrative than those other sites as well.

I would say “Sell Your Book on Amazon” is 95% user-friendly. I actually sat at my computer and followed the steps on Amazon as I read the book, so although the book is only 164-pages long, it took me a good week to read through it, spending a few hours each night working on my author profile and creating tags and lists on Amazon. I did get a bit confused at times, but I think that’s because Amazon may have changed the placement of a few things on its website. I hope Mr. Sampson is diligent about keeping the book updated because I think it is already a bit out-of-date in one or two places because of Amazon’s website changes. The only addition I wish the book had was a chart listing all the different addresses for Amazon programs—Amazon-connect, a seller-account (part of Amazon-connect), an associates account, and the different email addresses to contact Amazon depending on the section you need help with. My head rather swam as I grew to realize you don’t just have one Amazon account, but probably several different ones depending on whether you’re selling or directing traffic from your website to Amazon, or simply purchasing from Amazon. I did greatly appreciate the several pages in the back of the book designated for notes. I now have several pages of notes for quick reference when I need to perform a task on Amazon.

Brent Sampson also recommends authors tell people to go to Amazon and write 5 star reviews for their books. He even asks the reader to write a five star review for “Sell Your Book on Amazon.” I am happy to comply with his request, and at the same time, follow his advice that I sign my review with a plug for my own book.

- Tyler R. Tichelaar, author of “Iron Pioneers” available on Amazon.

Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret "How-to" Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
Brent Sampson
Outskirts Press (2007)
ISBN 9781432701963
Reviewed by Tyler R. Tichelaar for Reader Views (9/07)

Navigating the Amazon Sales Ranking

A companion piece to the audio file I posted yesterday is the separate article I published about Amazon's Sales Ranking. Here I try to explain how the ranking works and define what value you can derive from it:

First, the disclaimers: Since the algorithm Amazon uses to generate its sales ranking is proprietary, the details contained herein are extrapolated from research and field tests. The resulting consensus finds Amazon’s system to provide marginal sales data at best.

To whit, read Amazon’s own definition of its system, slightly paraphrased from their FAQ: “The Sales Ranking system exhibits how books are selling. The lower the number, the higher the sales. The calculation is based on sales and is updated each hour to reflect recent and historical sales of every item sold. We hope you find the Amazon.com Sales Rank interesting!” This last sentence seems to indicate Amazon’s own perspective on the importance with which the sales rankings should be viewed.

You’re not supposed to find the sales rankings informative or helpful. You’re supposed to find them interesting.

In actuality, the process is somewhat more convoluted than they let on. Only the top 10,000 books are updated every hour and the ranking does not depend upon the actual number of books sold, but rather, on a comparison against the sales figures of the other 9,999 books within that same hour. Simultaneously, a trending calculation is applied to arrive at a computerized sales trajectory. So, hypothetically, a book that held a ranking of 2,000 at 2pm and 3,000 at 3pm, might hold a 4,000 ranking at 4pm, even if it actually sold MORE books between 3-4 than it did between 2-3.

Books with rankings between 10,000 and 100,000 are recalculated slightly differently. Current projections, as well as historic sales information play a key role in these calculations. In fact, the predictive nature of the Amazon ranking system is what makes it possible for a newly-released book to outrank an older established title, even though the actual sales figures for the latter far exceed the former.

Books with rankings over 100,000 are applied with historic sales information and projections, although in the case of these books, history takes a back seat. Sales projections and trending take an active role here, which is why a book’s ranking can leap from 900,000 to 200,000 in the span of 24 hours or less. Does this mean the book has sold 700,000 copies in 24 hours? Absolutely not! What it does mean is that recent activity (i.e. purchases) for that book is trending higher than those 700,000 books it just surpassed. But, don’t get excited just yet; since the activity of those 700,000 other books range from slow to stagnant, one or two orders are sufficient to catapult a ranking.

If a book’s ranking breaks into the top 100,000, the sales history calculation starts to rear its head, which is why a “phenomenon” book has a hard time maintaining a high, legitimate ranking. A phenomenon is defined by a book that leaps from the high hundred-thousands into the lower thousands (or better) in the span of 24 hours or less, usually due to some concentrated marketing initiatives. Since Amazon’s sales history for that title doesn’t support the leap, the spike occurs and then quickly drops again.

HOW DOES ALL THIS TRANSLATE TO ACTUAL SALES FIGURES?

Since the data is recalculated every hour, it’s impossible to get cumulative sales figures, although those figures are applied to the algorithm during the calculation. No, to get a very rough idea of the actual number of books being sold, the sales ranking has to be dissected dynamically, with the same immediacy as the ranking being calculated. Chart the ranking of a top 10,000 book every hour for 24 hours and divide by 24 to arrive at its average daily ranking.

IPOD Listening - All About the Amazon Sales Ranking

Right before my recent book SELL YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON was published, I was interviewed about the Amazon Sales Ranking for a podcast. The audio interview is available via the play buttons below. I figured I would include it here since we touched upon my book in the last posting as I try to play catch-up with all that has transpired in the world of print-on-demand book publishing since my updates last spring.

It was my intention through this interview (and by writing the book itself) to dispel many myths about Amazon, its sales ranking, and publishing on-demand in general, particularly as it applies to self-publishing writers. A common misconception that occurs in relation to the Amazon sales ranking is an author's belief that the ranking is a quantifiable indication of book sales. The ranking is more complex than that. Sure, there is no doubt that the latest Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) is selling millions of copies and therefore has a #1 ranking on Amazon (which it has held for months before its release). But what does a ranking of 454,000 mean? Or, furthermore, what does it mean when a book's ranking jumps from 3 million to 700,000 in one day? Does that mean hundreds of books suddenly sold? No. (But it MAY mean that 1 sold).

The interview started on the subject of the Amazon Sales Ranking, and then we found ourselves discussing many other aspects of Amazon as well. You can listen to it using the buttons below:

I hope you enjoy it and find it informative.