Hi xena,
Congratulations on the publication of your novel! You say
"next"...but I can't imagine the thrill wearing off, no matter how
many books one has published.
Poking around various sources, I've not been able to find any specific
confirmation of a "best day to buy". In fact, author Morris Rosenthal
has produced a great article about interpreting Amazon sales ranks,
and according to him, day of the week isn't a factor:
" Amazon sales ranks are a combination of "what have you done for me
lately" and total sales. The top 10,000 books at Amazon are re-ranked
every hour, while the slower selling titles are re-ranked at a slower
pace, as long as several days. The exception is that a single sale by
a book with an otherwise unimposing sales rank will not promote it to
the top 10,000 list for even an hour. Consider a real-life example: a
two copy sale on a Sunday afternoon of a previously unranked book (no
copies had been sold on Amazon) resulted in that books acquiring a
ranking in the top 10,000. This ranking fell by approximately 1500 per
hour until it fell out of the top 10,000. At that point, the book
returned to an unranked status for several days, then settled in to a
rank of around 1,500,000. So, for a book to maintain a constant
position in the top 10,000, it has to be selling a couple copies a
day, or have sold so many copies in the past that it holds onto its
position through brute strength.."
(His link to his graph further on is broken, but I'm sure if you
contact him via the link at the bottom, he can point you to its
correct place. I have it on pretty good authority that Mr. Rosenthal
regularly haunts this corner of the 'Net. ;) )
Surfing the Amazon on a Log - Morris Rosenthal
http://www.fonerbooks.com/surfing.htm
It would appear that a sudden rush of people buying your book on one
day would give you a quick ranking jump, but only temporarily.
A good illustration of this would be a letter written to Pat Holt, of
the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association:
"Dear Holt Uncensored:
The Amazon rankings don't mean much. A Wall Street Journal article
from 1998 by Ron Suskind explained Amazon's rankings. He wrote the
rankings "are updated hourly for Amazon.com's 10,000 top-selling
titles, daily for the next 100,000 books and monthly for the rest of
the pack."
Later he reveals "One sale a day can put a title in the top 10,000
sellers; a sale every few days can land a title in the next tier of
100,000. When the rest of the list is updated each month, rankings are
determined by a complex mathematical formula based on the most recent
sale and the time between sales."
The article concludes by showing even a small number of books ordered
can have a big impact on the rank:
" ...wishing won't make it so, but action can work wonders. Lew
McCreary saw his well-reviewed thriller 'The Minus Man' (Penguin
Books, 1994) locked in Amazon.com's dark middle kingdom since the
start of the rankings. He regularly checked the ranking over several
weeks. It barely budged. Last week's slot: 680,281. 'I just want to
know what to do to get under 500,000,' he said last week.
"After some thought, Mr. McCreary, whose day job is editorial director
of CIO, a magazine for chief information officers, rallied the
magazine's staffers at lunchtime. He told them he would reimburse them
for the book's $9.95 purchase price if they called Amazon.com and
placed an order. Five hours later, 10 books had been bought, and Mr.
McCreary was making a run for glory.
"By 5:35 p.m. his rank was 368. 'I feel like I have the bends,'
chortled the author, preparing for a night of celebration. 'I surfaced
much too quickly. I just hope I can stay up this high until morning.'
"
Steve Rhodes"
Holt Uncensored #76
http://www.holtuncensored.com/members/column76.html
Perusing other sources and message boards, I find that the
overwhelming sentiment is that Amazon sales rankings look pretty to
the publicists, but don't really mean all that much in the grand
scheme of things, since a ranking can be quickly influenced by the
sale of just one copy.
I hope this has been helpful to you, xena! I wish you much luck with
your upcoming release - I'll be sure to look for you on the bestseller
lists!
--Missy |
