Sunday, May 10, 2009

2,241 and falling

[Content Disclosure/Warning: a first time author prattles on about da book...]
The book is out. Check-Raising the Devil though scheduled for release next Tuesday is now in bookstores thoughout U.S. and Amazon has been shipping since late last week. Reviews are beginning and the authors after many weeks of "post-editing" depression are once again 'all book, all the time.'
One fascinating and addictive author pass time (pencil sharpening endeavor) is to follow your books "Best Seller" ranking on Amazon. Several months ago when the book was first put up for cyber pre-orders, we were something like the 333,128th best seller on the site and falling (rising?) slowly. Then someone actually pre-ordered a copy and we rocketed up to 275,231st. Naturally both Amy and I had to go and read what we could find about the Amazon algorithm. Its complicated and nowhere approaching linear, enough said.
Over the next few months we found ourselves eventually breaking under 100K and a few weeks ago after hovering in the 50,000-100,000 range for weeks, we suddenly got some press and starting a slow but steady downward climb. Now this past week with the book actually out but not officially released, we saw our first fourth digit ranking followed by a quick dash down under 5,000 then 4,000. Last night we got our first heady taste in the land on the top 2,241 bestsellers on Amazon.
Can three digits we far behind? (and will they blog it?)

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

Big congratulations on the book release and the Amazon list! Very proud of your accomplishment, Tim!

Short-Stacked Shamus said...

677th this a.m., I'm seeing.