Amazon Ranking

I’ve noticed a lot of people worrying about the rankings, so I wanted to comment on that.

Currently, Sorcerer Rising is ranked 57,783 on Amazon.com for paid kindle sales. It has been as low as 32,000, as high as 130,000. I’m happy with that considering it’s been out for barely a week, but I know it’s subject to change. A lot of change. This time tomorrow I could be ranked in the millions.

But I’m not worrying about that and neither should you.

You see you made a sale yet the number goes higher? You make no sales yet the number drops? It fluctuates wildly and you think it’s rigged, incorrect, takes arcane formulae into account???

I’m telling you, don’t sweat it.

Take a look at your favorite authors. More than likely there not even in the top hundred. They’re low, but not that low (okay, they are when you check individual genres). And it fluctuates by a few thousand just as yours does by tens (or hundreds) of thousands.

Amazon is not abusing you, they are not playing with you. This number is based on acceleration and is compared to millions of other titles. If you sell one book, then sell two the next day you went up a hundred percent. The reason it fluctuates so wildly is because your book is not the center of your universe. That may have been harsh, so I’ll follow it up with this:

Neither is anyone else’s.

Not George R. R. Martin. (Game of thrones is 218)

Not Patrick Rothfuss. (Name of the Wind: 899 in the kindle store)

Their books fluctuate just like yours do, just in a much bigger, incredibly massive way. When they double their sales, that really means something. It’s more consistent, giving a more consistent ranking.

If your number drops or goes higher for odd reasons, just know it is a raindrop in an ocean. Everything else is writhing around your work, going up and down, changing. You may see the difference between 30,000 and 130,000 as the difference between ten sales and a hundred sales, it’s probably not even the difference between one. It’s the difference between one today and two yesterday. When you have this many units, making this many sales, across this many territories, genres, categories, etc. it really is amazing they can provide a number at all.

So, don’t sweat it. Focus on selling your book. Period. Don’t worry about the ranking unless you don’t have one (which means no sales) or it’s low enough to have major visibility (thus driving sales). Worry about what you want from this, and worry about writing that next book.

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About enathansisk

My name is Nathan Sisk, and I am a writer and aspiring author.
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