Watching the ratings

If you have been watching Amazon ratings as closely as I do, you will know that spot where your book is at its peak, which means its rating is as low a number as possible. There are two ratings that matter the most - overall kindle rating, and overall paperback rating. The ratings in the subcategories (US Short Stories, for example) are based basically on the overall rating, so it fluctuates in the same way but appears differently.

When someone buys or downloads your book, it is at its peak or lowest rating about five hours later, on kindle. On paperback, the rating changes five hours or so after they buy it, but you don't find out about it in your dashboard until a couple of days later when they finally print the book and send it out. So if you happen to be trolling your own ratings (as I do regularly) you might catch the fact that someone has bought something, and conversely if you are only looking at the dashboard, you will be too late: you'll see that one was bought, and you got the credit and the money, but you missed the rating peak (lowest possible numbers) by a day or two, and it is already starting its relentless climb up into the higher numbers.

Generally all my books have their leveling spots in the millions, and I measure this way: 1.6 million, 2.3 million, etc. Some are actually so high that Amazon doesn't include it in the product description - why list a rating of 17 million? They assume I would be embarassed to let people know that. But in my newer books, all my kindle ratings are below 5 million, and many of them are below 2 million. By "leveling spot" I mean that, after you sell one and it gets as low as it can get, it will start its steep and rapid journey back to its leveling spot, but by the time it gets there (say 1.7 million), its rate of increase will only be about 30,000/wk. on kindle, which is nothing compared to what it was losing when it first got to its peak.

So for example a book I have on ku (actually all my books are on ku) just got downloaded and read, and immediately (because I was there, about five hours later) the kindle rating was 152,958 and 115 on US Short Stories. That is actually pretty good for me, for any of my stories, and reflects the fact that the book has had relative success both in the long term (it's been around for ten years or so) and also in the past year. Now that it's at 152,958, though (a relatively low number for me), it will pick up almost a million a week, then about 600,000 a week, until it gets to its leveling spot, which is about 2.3 million. Once it gets there it will slow down its ascent to maybe 100,000 a week, and then down to about 30,000 a week, reflecting that it has found its leveling spot or place where it belongs. Other books will shoot right past it up into the 4.5 mil range or higher because they don't have the overall strength (total sales, total reads, etc.) that this one has.

Now Amazon tends to favor the newer books. They want everyone to see my new one, Devour that Spaghetti, and their algorithm will favor it by working in a higher rating even with less sales. So it was downloaded around the same day, same time, but incredibly enough got a rating of 101,042 and #67 in US SHort Stories. This could have reflected the fact that two people downloaded it in the same hour or very close to the same time. If people don't keep downloading it, it will begin its rapid and steep ascent up to wherever its natural leveling spot will be. If on the other hand, if people keep downloading it (which I hope of course, once they find out it's out there) we will not find its true leveling spot for a while. I have one book, published in April, and it has actually never settled into a true leveling spot, in either kindle or paperback, as it gets bought or downloaded every time it gets close. And that of course is what I hope for this and every book. Keep it in the air as you would a pingpong ball or volleyball that you, with friends, just try to keep suspended. Of course when you are shooting for low numbers instead of high ones you have to turn yourself around a little to envision what's actually happening.

But in the big picture, 101,042/#67 could be about the best it gets, and I wouldn't be surprised at that for several reasons. One, I'm just not that well known. The world finds out it's out there, ok, but that doesn't mean everyone rushes to read it. I'm still a relatively unknown author in the big picture. And, it would take frantic and pointed (this book only) marketing to get two people to download it in the same hour or same afternoon, again, like they just did, apparently. Finally, the "just published" glow falls off, and that's a statistical thing. Once it's been around a week or two, Amazon's not going to push it anymore, period. And that's a statistical/algorithmic statement - it's worked right into their calculation.

Congratulate me. Raise a glass somewhere. 67 is actually not so bad. Maybe somebody, in that hour, read through the top hundred short story books, and saw it. If so, I have some fame, at least for a moment there.