Amazon ranking

[JR S]

Hello All,
I have a new non-fiction book "how to become" and it has been out for two months. I have been working hard on getting the word out, but finances have me a bit ristricted. In any case without much effort from my part my book has been ranking 2800-5000 on Amazon and 20,000 on B&N.
My publisher (big house)says they are very happy with book sales considering book is $39.95 at bookstores, but they only talk about sales scans that were about 200 a week (that does not seem like a lot of sales to me).
I wanted to get an idea of what #s Amazon is doing? and does B&N ranking include bookstore sales?
Anyone out there have any answers or suggestions?

[Carol O]

Amazon rankings are generally meaningless, since factors include how well millions of other books are selling, not just how many <u>you</u> are selling. That being said, four-digit numbers are darn good. I suggest avoiding an ulcer by tracking only the sales scans.

[Verdancy]

For what it's worth, this month a ranking in the 3000-5000 range on Amazon has meant sales of about 4 books a day.

[Leon Kukkuk]

People are writing complicated papers on what Amazon rankings mean. The complexity of the arguments demonstrate that they mean very little. Getting word out about a book seems to be very difficult. Advice I received from many people is not to spend money on it. Word of mouth sells books and appearance on websites helps.

[roger morris]

Sounds like your doing really well with those rankings, JR S.

It does become something of an obsession checking the rankings. My book isn't even out yet and I find myself doing it. I'm just amazed that anybody has bought a copy so far!

[Verdancy]

Someone posted this joke on another writers' board:

Q: How many debut authors does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: None--you can check your Amazon rankings in the dark.

[Anthony Ravenscroft]

The first book I put out is very obscure. I remember being happy the first time its rank dipped below a million, then half a million, then ever so briefly menaced #100,000. For the most part, it hovers happily just under the million mark.

As for more recent work, I don't check in weekly, much less hourly, but when I drop by & note that a rank is #35,000 or something, I print a copy for my files. I'm more interested in what the numbers on the next royalty check look like!