My Amazon bestseller made me nothing

Ouch.

 

Weird that it is a bestseller, but then he goes on to say it sold roughly 4,000 copies (if I am reading this correctly). If he is going by his best seller rank, I was once told by a person at a publisher which picked up a book of mine the the Amazon rank has to do with people viewing the page and not sales. Anyway, if he made $12,000 off 4,000 sales that's actually a good take.

 

"Bestseller" is a vague word at best and subject to all sorts of influences.

First of all, from what I've read, it was #1 in the SATIRE category and 6th at one point overall. According to Amazon it's 190,956 on the bestseller list today.

4,000 copies by any stretch of the imagination is not a bestseller in the US unless it sold that number in a short period of time. Sales spike and then fall off dramatically And given the Jack Daniels story, that's probably what happened.

100 one week, 300 the next and after the Daniels story appeared, possibly 3000 copies. About two weeks later, 500 copies, 200, etc. The author's 15 minutes of fame are over.

$12,000 on a sale of $4,000 is about right.

And Amazon lists have to do with actual sales, not views.

 

Thank you. That was very informative.

 

But can he build upon this "small" success? Create a twitter feed? Get an online following? Can any money be made on Twitter?

And how long did it take him to write his book? Two months? Six months? A year? I have not read his article, so I apologize if it was mentioned there.

But if he starts to have a following from book to book, he might have more sales on the next thing he publishes.

 

I just published my second book. I'm cruising right along in sales: 0.

 

Every last muscian who ever signed a record company contract is sneering at this guy now. Actually getting 20% of what the book grossed would be a dream for them.

 

This is what I was told (albeit a number of years ago) by a national account manager of a publisher: "Amazon's sales rank is not determined by overall sales quantities, but by the number of hits a title receives during a specific time frame."

 

Well, as the old joke goes, God invented the film industry to make the music industry look good.

 

Never heard that before. Not to argue but it doesnt make sense.

Publisher's pay royalties on actual revenue whether it's online sales or through an honest to goodness old fashioned bookstore.

 

You know what JR -- I would like to get that book, go sit in the middle of a nice bar, diner, eatery of some sort, library and read it while I light up a cigarette and blow the smoke all in the air just to piss you off......

 

I was consistently second and third on the Amazon best-seller list for college football books for a few weeks at one point, never lower than the 5-10 range.

It was still not even on the radar in the overall rankings, but it was still pretty cool. Should have gotten some screen shots.