In my years of editing people’s books and helping consult with them about their sales, there are a couple of misunderstandings that pop up on a regular basis. I’m outlining those misunderstandings and clarifications in the hopes that they will help you enter your book advertising phase as a savvy salesperson!
The Higher the Ranking Number, the Better!
Sorry. That’s the exact opposite of how it works. Rankings are in reverse order of desirability. So, you want to work toward being #1, not #100,989. So, when you see that you were ranked #122 in a category, but you were ranked #78 the week before, that means your book is doing worse that it was the week before. If you move from #122 to #54, that would mean that your book is doing better than it was.
I Need Reviews to Get a Higher Rank
So, what does “doing better” actually mean? That you’re selling books!
Reviews are wonderful, but they are not the main driving force behind your ranking. Remember that Amazon is an ecommerce site, not a social media site. A book can have zero reviews and sell a million copies per day and it will still rank #1 in its relevant categories. On the flip side, a book can have hundreds of reviews (from family, friends, review exchange sites, etc.), yet not have sold a single copy, and will still end up very low in the rankings.
I tested this idea with two of my own books just to confirm the theory, and it’s a decisive result. Here is a screenshot of the rankings as of about noon on 11/29/2021:
As you can see, Book Outlining Basics (BOB) and The 12-Month Manuscript (12MM) are both ranked within the top forty books in this category (play and script writing). However, BOB has a single review while 12MM has 10. Yet, BOB is ranked higher than 12MM. As the 32nd best-selling book in this category, BOB has worn its single review with pride while outperforming books like A Novel Idea (that boasts 85 reviews).
So, what does this tell us?
That reviews are nice, but they aren’t anywhere near the most important thing when it comes to rankings. If you’re concerned about your rankings and about Amazon being more likely to show your book in search results or recommend it to people when they search for your topic or other books in your genre, focus on making sales, not necessarily getting reviews.
Honestly, reviews are relatively easy to fake (creating shell Amazon accounts and reviewing your own books that way, for example), or farm (by using review exchanges, asking friends and family, asking critique group members, etc.). So the amount of reviews that a book hasn’t isn’t always the most accurate measure of the quality of the piece or even of how popular it is. But the number of sales is something that’s a lot more difficult to falsify. And there’s no better testament to the value people put on something than the act of them spending their hard-earned money on it.
Since this is how Amazon views the popularity and value of a particular item, this is how it tends to rank those items, including books. If people were more likely to pay money to purchase a book, it’s likely that other people will be willing to purchase that book as well. Remember that Amazon makes money when you make money. They don’t make money when you get a good review. It makes you feel good, but it doesn’t put any more money in their pockets.
Check out the marketing and advertising lessons for more help with understanding options for how to promote yourself and your book.
Happy selling!
