What does the Amazon Ranking System mean?
Well, sometimes it actually means quite a lot.
Scenario 1; An excellent author has done his job, and written a fine outstanding novel. The editors have taken the book, and sought out every mistake, and the “Comma Police” have trampled on every sentence making certain that no extra punctuation marks mar the structure. The cover has been painted by Van Gogh, and the title fonts have been carved in gleaming white marble by Michelangelo. The back-flap has reviews by the Queen, Gandhi, and God himself, and the preface was written by William Shakespeare. The book then sold 50,000 copies per day for six months, made every concerned very rich and got added to every bestseller list in the world.
This is what that ranking would look like;
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1 in Kindle Store #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks
Okay, okay, I know it doesn’t usually go like that, but a good Amazon Best Seller Rank could give that impression. Of course, it could be a very different story… (Yes, I know authors like this… and they know who they are!)
Scenario 2: This author has no writing skill whatsoever, but he thinks he has. He surrounds himself with a lot of rabid friends who tell him so every day, who then dash onto Amazon and write a number of superb five-star reviews, basically telling lies about the book’s contents. The editors have never gotten a hundred miles from the book, because the author is either so egocentric to think it’s already perfect, or has such a fragile ego that he can’t stand any form of critique at all. The book has been dropped in the “FREE” section of the Amazon Kindle store, with a bunch of naked torsos on the front cover advertising the “smuttiest porn you have ever read” while somehow maintaining a strict holier-than-thou attitude. Yes, it looks like porn, and it’s been downloaded a few thousand times. But this author has a secret weapon. He’s mastered the art of the Amazon Ranking System. Believe it or not, in Amazon you can actually pick your own genre to link your book to. And you can make it so specialized, that even with the three million books that Amazon sells, there’s only about ten books in the category. SO… even if your book is totally CRAP, and you’re the lowest book in that rare section, you’ll still show up as ranked number TEN.
As an example, here’s one of my own rankings in such a rare section.
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,109 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store) #10 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Anthologies & Literature Collections > Horror
You see, there’s not much call for Literary Horror Anthologies, trust me. And this is how some authors look good on Amazon, while their actual product is way below par.
My own book?
The one with the #10 ranking?
It’s here…
http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Dont-Cry-Blood-Samples-ebook/dp/B00820QTBE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400162515&sr=8-1&keywords=blood+samples
Come see me at www.ianhallauthor.com
Oh, and if you see any mistakes that the editors missed? Shh! It’ll be our little secret!
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