Works, Publishing

Anatomy of best seller

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Hey, guess what! I can now add something really awesome to my résumé. I have attained the (dubious?) honor of an Amazon best sellers list.

Well, actually, a whole bunch of Amazon best sellers lists.

It’s kind of a long story, so here’s the shortest version I can tell. I wrote my prequel novella, Mr. Nice Spy, with the intent of giving it away as a freebie. And I did that. Some. But I had it for sale most of the time. With my new release coming up and the Bookmarked Bargains event two weeks ago, I decided to try to make it permafree on Amazon. I lowered the price on Smashwords, Kobo and my site and put out the word to report it to Amazon price matching. Some other authors told me Amazon would not match those sites, so I kinda figured, what could I do? And said the bargain price was still 99¢.

How many sales does it take to hit a category best seller list?

Not very many for the paid lists. The first day of the event began and the sales began rolling in! By the time I hit about 25 sales, I checked the book’s Amazon listing and there it was! I was a best seller in the categories of Espionage and Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue.

MNS best seller rankings

Jump for joy!

As my sales continued, my book climbed a bit higher on the charts—my one claim to fame might be that I outsold Valerie Plame’s novel for about an hour 😉 —but eventually my sales dropped off in the evening. I figured that was probably natural, and they might pick up again in the morning. Or they might not. I was just thrilled to have made it once.

The next morning, my sales were still level. I didn’t move a single unit all day, though my other book, I, Spy was still selling. Finally, in the afternoon, I saw this tweet:

I virtually patted this poor soul on the head. My book was 99¢, silly. But then another person tweeted it:

At this point, I thought maybe I should check it out. So I did. And there it was: free.

And there it was: top. ten. on the Free Espionage list.

MSN best seller free ranking
(At the peak.)

I’d missed this in my sales report page because the “Free Pricematch” column is so far to the right that it wasn’t automatically showing on my screen, and I actually didn’t know it was there. When I checked, I’d already moved hundreds of free books.

I watched the numbers climb all day. In the end, through that weekend, I “sold” nearly 1000 free books (983, to be exact). I got as high as #3 on the FREE Espionage books list, and I also ranked on several other lists: Free Thrillers; Free Mystery, Thriller & Suspense; Free Romance Mysteries & Suspense; Free Romantic Suspense. So that’s two paid lists (that I know of; I didn’t think to check these things before it went free) and five free lists. It also broke into the top 5000 paid books and top 500 free books on ALL of Amazon.

This kicked off one of the more awesome weeks of my life. There was so. much. freaking. awesome in this week that I can’t do it justice in one post. Okay, I couldn’t do it justice in any number of posts, but it’s going to take at least one or two more to try.

Just to whet your appetite, here’s a quiz: I also A.) took a ride in a private plane, B.) got to know a former CIA officer, and C.) spent an entire day evading the surveillance teams pursuing me while making dead drops, social engineering and figuring out how to survive in this city.

Oh wait, it’s D.) all of the above. (And yes, B and C are related. And no, no part of this is exaggeration, though it is a tiny bit of marketing.) Well, and E.) had a new niece, but really, a new baby to love is better than the other stuff, so it isn’t fair to compare.

What do you think? Do you ever look at Amazon best seller lists?

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2 thoughts on “Anatomy of best seller”

  1. WOW = Congrats! And cool! And No Way! And I’m envious! And awesomesauce! All rolled into one huge WOW. Way to go, McCollum!

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