I read an article recently called “The Top 10 Things All Authors Should Know About Amazon.” (It’s here if you’re curious.) Most of it wasn’t anything I didn’t already know. However, there were two things I found interesting.
First, is Amazon’s magical number for reviews. According to a source author for this article, Amazon starts paying attention to books when they receive 50 reviews. Now, this is something I’d heard from another source as well, so I would guess it’s true, but I can’t be 100% positive about that. Either way, that 50 number is essential. “Paying attention” for Amazon means more visibility. It means that Amazon gives your book a little publicity. I don’t know if that means your book gets in the newsletter or if it starts coming up on recommended lists for you if you’ve purchased similar books. I just don’t know, but if Amazon is going to give me more visibility, I’ll take it.
Right now on Amazon, I have 33 reviews. I’ve had two reviews disappear, and I have no idea why. I’ve contacted Amazon and I’ll see what they say. In addition, I was contacted by another reader who said they’d posted a review and it had never shown up. It’s slightly upsetting because reviews are hard to get! Either way, I need 17 more reviews to reach that magical number of 50. If you’ve read Borrowed Magic and haven’t left a review yet, I’d really really really really really appreciate it. 🙂
The second thing I found interesting in the article was the claim that your Amazon ranking had less to do with sales and more to do with how many people are looking at your book page. Now, my rankings have always gone up with more sales, but maybe it’s really views that are determining it and more views usually equals more sales. One way to know for sure is if everyone who reads this today goes to the Borrowed Magic page on Amazon just to look. You don’t even have to buy. It would just be interesting to see if I get a lot more views if my ranking would also go up (which I have no way of knowing unless people tell me, but if my ranking goes up with minimal sales…). And why would rankings matter if they’re not connected to sales? Because the higher your rank, the more visibility you get to new readers who may not have heard of you before.
Shari Lambert 