Friday, August 12, 2011

Happy Friday

I appreciate everyone's patience while I obsess with the ridiculous minutia of my just released kindle-only novelette. I just wanted to share this little sight from the Amazon when I went to my book page:




In case the image is too small to make out, the two sales last night (Thank you Alex and Julie) put me into the top 100 for it's category. I was just ahead of a short story collection by Larry Niven.Wow.

I say wow because that's a grand total of 5 sales since Monday. For some reason I thought it would take a few more to break the top 100 in any category.

That ranking will slip as I hit longer dry spells between sales, once I run out of regulars on this blog that give me pity purchases and it's forced to stand on it's own. I'll soon be able to get on with my life and quit wasting so much time on this. I think it's the newness that really has been distracting for me.

And yes, in retrospect, were I to give this week a title, it would have been Narcissism Week. I'll be a bit less over the top after my weekend. Thanks again everyone.

I hope everyone has a happy Friday.

16 comments:

PT Dilloway said...

The Amazon formulas are a little weird. I'm sure there's some arcane math behind them that I don't feel like looking up. It is nice to see your book as 20,000th or so. Though today mine was 91,000th. Bummer.

Deborah Walker said...

That is brilliant. Congratlations. But how come it' in the anthologies section?

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

hehe it's fun to read how this works. I had no idea.

Rusty Carl said...

Rogue - I think Amazon is pretty tight lipped about how the calculate rankings, but some pretty smart people have looked at the results and believe that the make it pretty hard to trick your way into the top 1000 or so. Apparently some enterprising folks also work hard at gaming the system, like convincing a hundred people to purchase a book simultaneously. Once you get so far up the rankings Amazon's auto recommendation system starts to kick in and then you're on your way. So I'm guessing the math gets pretty complicated in order to take all that in account.

Deborah - I told Amazon it was a short story and the kind of forced it into that category. I'm not entirely thrilled with that, as it could be misleading.

Michael - I do find the process pretty interesting myself. Hence my inability to stop talking about it.

M.J. Fifield said...

Congratulations on your just-released novelette and its appearance in the Top 100! That's really great!

Matthew MacNish said...

Narcissism or not, this is kind of fascinating.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Congratulations! I never even noticed what my book hit.

Laila Knight said...

Rusty, you are too funny, and you should be proud of this success. I'll be sure to check out Amazon and your book. :) Also noticed you changed your blog again, at least it looks different in my end.

Also, still trying to figure out what Blutonian means without trying to google.

Andrew said...

Man, I never looked at any of that stuff with my first release of House. I don't think I ever really realized it was there. Not that I didn't check my sales occasionally, but I never checked rankings or anything. Now, I'm going to have to figure out how to do that. >:/
Especially with the new edition when I release that. Oy! You've ruined me!

Golden Eagle said...

Congratulations! :)

Hope you have a great weekend.

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

I'm not sure if you read Kristine Katherine Rusch's blog, but you might want to look at this post: http://kriswrites.com/2011/08/10/the-business-rusch-comparisons/

Off to buy your novelette....

Rusty Carl said...

MJ - thanks, but it crept in there due to a fluke. Maybe it was a really slow day for short story sales.

Matthew - Thank you, I was starting to think I was getting on everyone's nerves, I think it's fascinating too.

Alex - Well, I find it very captivating, I mean, the rankings change every hour or so, I've been vacillating between 140k and 25k in the past few days. I sit and stare at it the page and keep hitting refresh, I think I know what it must be like to be hypnotized.

Laila - Thank you, I don't think there is any real reason to be proud, but it did thrill me. I've long since slipped out of that top 100 ranking, I think I was only there for an hour or two. I didn't change my blog again, at least not on purpose. It's been wonky for the past day or so though. And if you Google Blutonian I think you'll just get referred here. That word belongs to me.

Andrew - Much like Alex, I suspect you to be a better man than I.

Eagle - Thanks, same to you!

Sandra - I read her blog as much as I can. She's one of the main reasons I decided to change my mind about self pubbing. Her articles are incredible. Be sure to get a sample first though, I mean, you won't get to read much, but I am starting to feel guilty about so many people buying my novelette just because I'm begging folks to. I'm starting to think I should tell folks to stop. If you don't like it let me know, wait, you can return those if you want. Or I can send you your dollar back.

Cindy said...

I've seen other books show up in odd categories when they get into the top #100. One time I saw a fantasy novel show up in top rated ghost stories and there was no ghost in it. *shrug*

Danette said...

Glad you got the link fixed!

Rusty Carl said...

Cindy - I guess that happens when folks are trying to fit their stories into genre, since I was limited to only few categories to put my book into I went with short stories, I hope the product description makes it clear what it is. As far as the fact that 5 sales in a week could get me into the top 100 (if only for an hour or two) stunned me. Especially when I saw my name just above Larry Niven's. I had a moment of... well, I'll just call it a moment.

Danette - me too, thanks for pointing it out. I don't know how long it would have been before I discovered it otherwise.

Ellie Garratt said...

Well I'd be more than happy being in the top 100. Yay for you!