A Look at Amazon Kindle rankings

Many motivational writers recommend that whatever kind of person you want to become... find those kind of people and spend time with them. I've been very lucky in that respect. I'm part of an amazing group of authors and readers who call ourselves the Righteous Perverts. This year alone I've seen the RP authors reach amazing heights. Curious to find a way to measure our successes, I decided to do a little research about Amazon Kindle sales rankings. I can be a bit of a geek from time to time.

This morning my geekiness was full throttle.

Reported in a Jan 27, 2011 CNN article by Julianne Pepitone, eBooks have surpassed paperback sales on Amazon.

"...for every 100 paperback books sold, Amazon has sold 115 Kindle books since the beginning of the year, the company said."

Pepitone's article noted that the online retailer posted quarterly sales of $13 billion for the last quarter of 2010.

I realize Amazon sells other things besides books (the Kindle device is one example, and there are many more), still a big percentage of its sales comes from book sales, both print and digital. With the shift from print to eBooks coming faster than anticipated, I am even more interested in sales rankings at Amazon.

It's my understanding that Amazon sales rankings for books are updated once each hour. The lower the number means the better the sales. It's like each download constitutes a vote. The more votes, the better ranking. The fewer votes, the lower the ranking. Beyond that, I don't know much. How long do previous sales remain counted? I don't know. How do free books vs. purchased books rankings differ? Again, I don't know. There are numerous questions that swirl in my head, but for now I have enough to go on for this exercise.

As of this writing Amazon states it has 943,802 eBooks.
So to be in the top 10% of all eBooks on Amazon a book needs a sales ranking of 94,802.
10% - 94,380 / 5% - 47,190 / 2% - 18,876 / 1% - 9,438
1/2 of 1% - 4,719 / 1/4th of 1% - 2,360 / 1/10th of 1% - 948
...and so on.

My buddy Melissa Schroeder's book A LITTLE HARMLESS PLEASURE sits at #795 as of this writing, and her book which is available for pre-order and release June 7th A LITTLE HARMLESS ADDICTION has made the top 1% and is moving up every day. No doubt it will be her best seller of all time, and that's saying a lot for an author who has 30+ titles available.

The person who urged me to write romance in the first place in 2009 has had a wonderful year already. Shayla Black's book SURRENDER TO ME made the New York Times. The Kindle version stayed under 500 out of all eBook titles at Amazon for quite some time after it released.

My dear friend Sophie Oak's debut book SMALL TOWN SIREN came out on Amazon in August last year and got under 200 in the sales rankings. As of this morning, it is in the 1/4th of 1% range. Wow! Every one of her titles since then have sold like mad, each reaching the coveted 1/10th of 1% level. Her latest ONE TO KEEP just went up on Amazon yesterday and currently sits at #1,621 while continuing to zoom up the rankings.

Other buddies who are killing on Kindle sales rankings this morning:

• Chloe Lang has two titles in her serialized erotic romance GOING WILDE #839 & WILDE FIRE #1034
• Kiera West's paranormal shifter series also has two books in the top tier. SEDUCING THEIR MATE #1249 and THE ALPHA'S FALL #1129
• Heather Rainier's ROSEMARY'S DOUBLE DELIGHT at #1784
• Corinne Davies's CARESS OF FUR #3816

My own book, SECRET CRAVINGS did amazing this year on Amazon, staying under 1k for over 6 weeks and still remains in the top 1%.

How does all that correlate into book sales and royalties? I just don't know. Still 13 billion in sales at Amazon is quite a proverbial money pie. Congrats RP authors. May this year continue to bring you big slices from Amazon and other retailers.

Whew! I think I've geeked out enough for one day.

Dream Big!

Kris