Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Amazon Author Rank

From my inbox, and probably yours.

"Dear [author]
Today we have added a new feature, Amazon Author Rank, the definitive list of best-selling authors on This list makes it easy for readers to discover the best-selling authors on overall and within a selection of major genres. Your Amazon Author Rank is [whatever] in[genre] .

Amazon Author Rank is your rank based on the sales of all of your books on Just like Amazon Best Sellers, it is updated hourly.  The top 100 authors overall and the top 100 in selected genres will be displayed on  And you can see your Amazon Author Rank trended over time in Author Central.

You can find your Amazon Author Rank in Author Central under the Rank tab. Historical rank data is available from September 28, 2012.

We’re always interested in feedback, so please let us know what you think.

The Author Central Team

P.S.  You may have friends who are authors; feel free to pass this email along to them.  Amazon Author Rank is a feature available to all authors registered in Author Central."

[Heavy sigh.]

Why does everything have to be a frelling competition?


M Barnette said...

In their minds I guess they think this is important somehow. To me it's a non-issue. I don't care how I sell or what my rank is vs another author. Their fans are not my fans and we aren't competing.

If another author is writing contemporary and I only write paranormal/scifi/fantasy how does that compare? We don't have the same readership. People reading Stephen King aren't being read by the same people as Nalini Singh.

Totally stupid concept, Amazon.

Seeley deBorn said...

Everything is a competition. That's the American way.

Mireya said...

It's an American thing, Emily. It baffles me as well (I am not American, but my husband is, and trust me, that "competition" thing... he does it even without realizing it he is doing it WITH ME). No further comment :P


M Barnette said...

I'm American for the record. See my first post for my take on this.

Seeley deBorn said...

There are always exceptions to generalizations.

The "self made man" and "rugged individulist" ideal promoted in the US requires competition. The entire social and political structure is based on it.

Anonymous said...

I'll probably use the feature to identify the "undiscovered" authors further down the list.

Anonymous said...

John Scalzi has a good post on this, which amongst other things notes that it has to be a competition because that furthers Amazon's goal of increasing Amazon's profits in the long term. From Amazon's perspective, it is not in the least stupid, because anything that gets authors competing to have the highest ranking *on* *Amazon* is likely to result in increased market share for Amazon at the expense of Amazon's competitors.

Anonymous said...

Let me make that a clickable link (I hope):