I track the sales rank of a book after a single sale, and am floored by the results.
I’ve mentioned before that one of my side businesses is publishing. I have about 10 titles in print, most of which are very “long tail” books that sell steadily but slowly. Cumulatively, they bring me in decent supplemental revenue every month. I have a couple of titles, however, that almost never sell.
One of them is a title I actually thought would do well when I first published it. We’ll just say it was targeted to the “computer hacker” niche. I couldn’t have been more wrong about this one. The book sold a single copy the day after going live on
What this book didn’t make me in revenue , it made up for in a very valuable (and unexpected) lesson in
There are factors you can look at that will indicate a book will “never sell.” Yet sales rank is just one part of this.
Screenshot showing one item’s sales rank.
Here’s what happened when I watched this book sell a single copy:
It was published on November 15th, and sold a single copy the next day, bringing its rank to approximately 100,000. Then (as I said), it never sold another copy.
Here’s the kicker: Today, just over 3 months later, the book is ranked 6.5 million. It went from 100,000 to 6.5 million in three months.
Keep in mind the worst rank a book can possibly have is around 13 million (as of this writing). Also keep in mind a rank of 6 million is considered atrocious by nearly everyone (including me, although this is a position I’m now reconsidering), and almost no booksellers will touch a book like this. But 3 months isn’t that long ago.
When I noticed this books’ sales rank the other day, I was totally floored that a book could go from a sale to 6 million in only 3 months.
A second example, with a different lesson
Its clear that
In mid-August (6 months ago), I purchased a book when it was ranked 400,000. It had just sold a copy at $200 (according to CamelCamelCamel.com). I had the only copy on
How could a book that sold 6 months ago be ranked 3.5 million, yet a book that sold 3 months ago be ranked 6.5 million? The answer is pretty simple:
Further reading
90% of this material is included in
Click the banner below for more info.
Also, claim your free book:
Truly appreciate the information that you are providing here! I just dipped my feet wet in the FBA world a couple of weeks ago and today I sent my 3rd shipment to Amazon! So far, I haven’t sold anything but I am trying not to be discouraged by that.. I have read and researched many number of sources to date and I am going to add your blog into my sources 🙂 I am hooked and scout anything with a barcode that comes my way.. I know books can make a great category for sourcing and some of your posts really help me with advancing into that stream. Thanks!
Sounds like you’re off to a running start. Congratulations.