Open Door Publications and Can’t Put it Down Books have had some great successes lately. Two of our books opened as Number One New Releases in their categories last month and several other books are climbing the ranks of the Amazon listings.
- Ruins of Redemption, Poems in English and Spanish by Alvaro Vega, launched in early March as the Number 1 bestseller in its category.
- Divine Hotel, a time travel novel, by Nicole Loughan, opened on March 28 and quickly reached Number 1 in new releases in its category. It has stayed there several days. at Number 6 in new releases.
- Fate’s Hand, by Melissa Macfie, has hit the top 50 in its category twice since being published in October.
- I Found Jesus in the Stock Market by Cassandra Laymon recently reached number 91 in books and Number 44 in e-books in her category.
What Does It Mean?
I’m often asked, “how many books does it take to become a Number 1 Amazon Bestseller?” Guess what, there’s no easy answer. A lot depends on what genre or category you are writing in.
According to Amazon Author Central, “Amazon Author Rank is based on sales of all your books relative to the sales of other authors.” Books are ranked by category and are updated hourly.
Because books are ranked by category, an author writing in a small genre, for example “Children’s Asian & Asian American Books,” can rise to the top of its rank category while selling fewer books than someone writing in a general category, such as “mystery.”
This does not diminish the ranking of authors who are serving a small, niche market. They have to work just as hard, maybe harder, than the author in a large category because they have fewer people to market to.
It does mean that before you put your book on Amazon, you should carefully research your category. The more popular your genre, the more precise you must be. As I mentioned before, the “mysteries” category is huge. But within that giant category are lots of subcategories: “police procedural,” “woman sleuths” “Southern mystery,” “crime fiction, heist,” and “romantic suspense” are just a few of the sub-categories available.
The more appropriately you categorize your book, the better chance you have of climbing to the top of your rank. There are two reasons for this. The first, is that when your book is properly listed, readers who are looking for exactly what you write are more likely to find it. And second, the narrower the category, the fewer books you are competing against to get to that coveted Number 1 rank.