Zen and the Art of Ignoring the Numbers

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things…”

Like how we owe it to ourselves to stop obsessing about our Amazon rankings.

I herewith call for a moratorium on checking our numbers.

And I invite you all to send me email telling me what you were able to accomplish with the extra hour a day you will now have to do something fun or productive with.

While you’re at it, tell me how much better you feel about yourself without that constant reminder of how well you think the book is or isn’t doing.

Why now?

Cause things have changed.

First, the ranking does not take into account the third party sales (the pesky used books and the other bookstores that show up in the new and used right hand area) which account for the lion’s share of booksales according to many new articles in the press.

Second, the ranking are no longer cumulative in the way they used to be.

And third, they really are indicative of nothing if you’re not in the top 100.

Sarah Weinman ran a fascinating blog entry about one NYT bestselling author’s sales numbers over a three week period this summer:

B&N: 4,140
Waldenbooks: 4,888
Borders: 3,993
Anderson Merchandisers/Walmart: 47,671
Target: 16,341
Price/Costco: 17,291
Sam's: 14,108
Amazon: 320

In the comments section a few interesting authors/publishers weighed in and made some very salient points.

Tess Gerritsen pointed out that: “The Amazon rankings are more correlative to your overall hardcover sales than to your paperback sales. Because of the cost of shipping, it doesn't make sense for a reader to order a newly released paperback from Amazon; they could get it a lot cheaper by just going to their local Walmart.

“But with price discounts, ordering a brand new hardcover from Amazon doesn't cost you too much more than going to your local independent.”

Richard Nash, publisher of Soft Skull Books said: “ Amazon represents about 10% of Soft Skull's sales on average; however that masks wide swings: on some titles Amazon could represent as much as 60% of sales, on others as little as 0.25%”

I’d suggest Nash’s numbers have something to do Soft Skull’s edgy list. A lot of their books are the kind that get a lot of WOM on the net and would lead to fast Amazon clicking.

Plus when a book doesn’t have a huge bookstore presence but gets a lot of attention its Amazon rankings are higher.

So, I don't know about you, but today, I'm swearing off the numbers and will report back on how much calmer I am tomorrow.

Comments

[Bob Morris]

Good idea and I'm on board, but let's get the word out to others, too, specifically: venues that might review our books.

True story: The Orlando Sentinel, my hometown paper, didn't review my first novel when it came out last fall. When the local alternative weekly, bless them, ran a piece criticizing the Sentinel for the omission, the Sentinel features editor, in defense, said: The book's B&N ranking was about 60,000 and since anything above 10,000 is not credible, they chose not to review it.

The book's ranking was yo-yoing all over the place (at one point it was well below 1,000) but for editors to base review choices on such rankings is just plain stupid.

[Danyel]

I'll do it, MJ. Not checking ... at least not for a while.

[Karen]

Thanks for the reminder, MJ. Obsessing about numbers (any numbers) is a particular (bad) habit of mine. I think I'll take a break today.

[Sarah]

Maybe I am just odd, then, for ordering several paperbacks at once from amazon.co.uk, getting them cheaper than anywhere else I could feasibly get them from, and getting free shipping?

[anon]

I work in publishing on the sales and marketing side, and I pulled together these figures about a year ago. It appears little has changed since.

1. Last Thursday, one of our books zoomed from a sales rank of 32,154 to 872, peaking at 665 on Friday. How many copies did we sell in total last week? 17.

2. Another book hovered between the mid-6000s and 14,000s during the week. It ended up selling 37 copies in total.

3. Finally, a publishing colleague shared that one of their authors had appeared on NPR's Fresh Air program that same week. Before the interview, the book ranked 36,162. The day of the interview, it hit 300. The following day, it reached 80 and appeared on the Movers & Shakers list. And, after all that, how many did it sell at Amazon? 47 copies.

[Richard]

For a very reasonable fee, I will do the checking for all of you authors -- and I promise that even under pain of death, I won't reveal the numbers to you. Or I'll just make up something nice and make you all feel a whole lot better.

[Bill Thompson]

I don't have an Amazon ranking to check, but I'll stop obsessing with the Feedburner stats on how many people are listening to my podcast. :)

[JA Konrath]

Amazon gets their books through Ingram.

If you want to check actual sales vs. Amazon ranking, call 615.213.6803 and punch in your ISBN.

But I'm sure none of you will do that, because we're all no longer obsessed with our rankings.

(Bloody Mary is currently ranked on Amazon at 62,205, and has sold a 635 copies through Ingram since July 18.)

[Natalie R. Collins]

Okay, I'll do it, but can I check it ONE time before I go cold turkey? (I can feel the shakes coming on....)

[Robin 'Roblimo' Miller]

I write computer/tech books -- exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to sell better on Amazon than in brick/mortar stores.

But Amazon is a tiny market for my work. Barnes/Noble -- not BN.com but the stores -- is the biggest seller of 'Point & Click Linux' and has a large preorder in for my almost-completed 'Point & Click OpenOffice.org' based on the previous book's track record.

I have no idea what my Amazon ranking is. I am a royalty statement person, same as Theo Lippman's daughter Laura.

- Robin

PS - Theo was one of the people who taught me how to write decently back in his Baltimore Sun days. He was one of the last hat-wearing, cigar-smoking editors there...

[Marilyn Peake]

Tale of a Relapsed Checker ~

Your suggestion came at a very good time for me! I had sworn off checking my online sales numbers a couple of weeks ago. My resolve lasted about two weeks. Then I "relapsed" after sneaking a very quick peek (it was quick, I swear!) at both Amazon.com and Fictionwise.com, and discovering that my sales ranks had improved! Then my numbers un-improved; but, by then, I was hooked - I kept checking, obsessively. (Surely my numbers will improve any minute!) I finally decided that this is very much like gambling. An author types in their book titles over and over again ... Sometimes there's a payoff! But, ah, I now remember with great fondness those weeks when I had stopped checking. I caught up on my household chores; I finished reading the Harry Potter books #1 through #5, and started on #6 ... (WOW! Have you seen the sales ranks for the Harry Potter books?!!? Oooops, sorry ... To quote J.K. Rowling's character, Hagrid: "I shouldn't have said that.") ... I spent some wonderful time with my family. O.K., no more checking my sales ranks ... I'll just check now, quickly, to get a baseline number. :)

Best Wishes,
Marilyn Peake
http://www.marilynpeake.com