Amazon Sales Rankings -
Approximate
The rankings that Amazon displays for
most of the books on the site are not an indication of how many copies have
sold in any measured period, nor are they a
good indicator of how quickly the next copy will sell, nor of how many
will sell in any given future period.
They are only a
measure of the time since the most recent copy sold. That’s it.
For example
(these numbers are from a dealer’s sales records):
Time since last
sale Ranking (approx)
1
day
140k
2
days
223k
3
days
427k
4
days
480k
5
days
560k
6
days
629k
1
week
707k
2
weeks
1.17m
3
weeks
1.49m
1
month
1.81m
2
months
3.16m
3
months
3.45m
4
months
3.56m
5
months
3.66m
6
months
3.73m
7
months
3.81m
8
months
3.88m
9
months
3.94m
10
months
4.00m
11
months
4.05m
1
year
4.11m
2
years
4.56m
3
years
4.81m
Just because a
book has a high ranking number, does not mean a copy won't sell tomorrow, just
as a low ranking
number doesn't mean that a copy will
necessarily sell anytime soon. A book that hasn't sold for 3 years may get a
sudden demand from a single buyer, or a
group of buyers if something special happens, like a teacher requiring
if for a course, or the author mentioning
it while on tour for another of his books. Or a book that sold yesterday
may not have another sale for years.
Ranking numbers tell you nothing about sales (if any)
previous to the most recent one. There could have been none
for quite a while, or many just before
that.
If a book has no
ranking number, that means Amazon has no record of it ever selling on their
site. That could be
because there were not any copies available
for most of the time the page existed, and there actually is a pent-up
demand for it. Don't avoid listing books
just because there is no ranking for it, unless there are already several
low-priced copies just sitting there.
Books that have
rankings that stay below 140k day after day, are continuously selling one or
more copies per day.
On those you should never lowball or even
match the lowest price. You will be leaving-money-on-the-table if you do.
Price well away from that point. It will
still sell soon enough, once the buyers have cleaned out all the low-priced
copies. I have sold books where my listing
was not even on the first page-of-25 when I listed it. It may take a week
or two, but is worth the wait.
A different, updated view of Sales
Rankings:
5,460,000 - 7,000,000 over 3 years ago
5,150,000 - 5,460,000 2 - 3
years ago
4,590,000 - 5,150,000 1 - 2
years ago
4,364,000 - 4,590,000 9 -
12 months ago
4,099,000 - 4,364,000 6 - 9
months ago
3,775,000 - 4,099,000 3 - 6
months ago
1,869,000 - 3,775,000 1 - 3
months ago
1,696,000 - 1,869,000 3 - 4
weeks ago
1,405,000 - 1,696,000 2 - 3 weeks ago
1,029,000 - 1,405,000 1 - 2
weeks ago
931,000 - 1,029,000 6 - 7 days ago
839,000 - 931,000 5 - 6 days ago
748,000 - 839,000 4 - 5 days ago
655,000 - 748,000 3 - 4 days ago
514,000 - 655,000 2 - 3 days ago
226,000 - 514,000 1 - 2 days ago
150,000 - 226,000 12 - 24 hours ago
90,000 - 150,000 6 - 12 hours ago
30,000 - 90,000 2 - 6 hours ago
1 - 30,000 0
- 2 hours ago