If your book does not make it to the front page of Amazon book categories, it is as good as dead.
The math is pretty clear. In nearly 64% of the 10 000 categories tracked by Kindle Ranger, books ranking below the 50th position (front page) sell less than 1 book a day.
That’s a lousy result for a book you spent months, maybe years researching, proofreading, polishing, pulling your hair out, etc.
Enters Kindle Ranker…
This new tool routinely scans Amazon book categories (paperback and kindle) to aggregate information about the front page best seller books in each available category.
- Top and last ebooks absolute sales rank
- Authors and publishers of ebooks in each bestseller list
- Titles and description of ebooks in bestseller lists
- Percentage of indie books in bestseller lists
- Percentage of new releases in bestseller lists
- The average price in all Amazon book categories
- Etc.
Imagine the powerful insight you get when you start crunching these numbers!
To put it somewhat concisely, I’d say that it gives you the ability to find the path of least resistance to hit the bestseller status in a given Amazon book category, or at the very least, break it to the front page!
Why should you care so much about Kindle bestseller lists or Amazon book categories in general?
See, indie authors do not remotely pay attention to Amazon book categories as much as they need to. At least I know I did not. The equation, however, is very straightforward: if nobody finds your books…well nobody will read it.
Sure you can advertise your book in the 4 corners of social media (and spend a hefty amount of money doing so), but there is no greater golden stamp than making it to a bestseller list on Amazon.
It is the difference between the cover magazine and a scribbled footnote on the 45th page….nobody reads footnotes.
When I published my first book about computer security, a very niche subject in computers mind you, I immediately chose the first two Amazon book categories that contained the keyword I was targeting: security. I did not even think twice about it.
My sales were okay, my book even made it to the #1 position in the UK market, but that lasted only an hour or so.
One day I got curious and looked at what other authors in the same genre were doing…
I was shocked!
Specialized computer security books were listed in the “social media” category, next to marketing books, or – and this cracked me up – in “Information Management” category next to Story telling and digital business model books…
So I wondered about this phenomenon, why do authors/publishers prefer some Amazon book categories over others?
This called for an experiment…
I looked around for online services that tracked Kindle bestseller lists, but they were pretty expensive. We are talking about a couple of hundred bucks, which is simply absurd. I understand there are infrastructure costs involved, computing power to analyze huge chunks of data, optimization, etc. but give me a break…
So I thought to hell with it, I will give it a go. My computer programming days are bit behind me but this puzzle about categories and best sellier lists was simply too annoying.
I started working on a rough and ugly version of Kindle Ranker and used it to find Amazon book categories related to computer security with a low best seller threshold ( around 5 books to make it to the bestseller front page).
Once I found a couple of candidates, I swithed one of my books from “Computer security & Encryption” – the overcrowded category I always list my books in- to calmer categories…then waited
A couple of days later, my book went from, buried book number 187 to the 8th bestseller in that new category…Did this move affect my sales? You bet your sweet face it did!
I went from a 2-3 sales a day to a 6-9 sales a day, that’s almost three times more income!
Now you get to take advantage of the power of Kindle Ranker for free ( you will be limited to 20 results) or have full access for a cup of coffee’s worth. Which is still 15 times cheaper than the competition. You’re welcome 🙂
Give it a spin now!
The service is pretty new so bear with me please. If you have any suggestions, comments or notice any bugs, please send me an email to [email protected].
Cheers!
Alex from KR