[Madness]

So litgreg (why does this make me think of old greeg) over on TPB made a genius comment.

We can cause TUC's rating to spike on Amazon/(other purchasing outlets but doing so diffuses the power of the task) by all placing our orders more or less at the same moment.

I would really like to coordinate this because it is so relatively easy to do. Coordinate an online purchase across timezones.

Cheers. Let's affect change.

[Wilshire]

So litgreg (why does this make me think of old greeg)

lmao yes.

Also yes (regarding the rest of the post).

Though I never got an answer as to where the best place to buy would be.

Glad I started the conversation though.

[Triskele]

Madness - You can explain the method to me?  How does doing this affect the change you're talking about?  What's Amazon's policy?

[Wilshire]

From someone named litgreg on TPB:

"if we all order it at once on Amazon we could cause the ranking to spike."

Madness ran with the idea without further explanation

[Francis Buck]

I'm down for it. Out of curiosity, what's the likelihood that a Kindle version will come out at the same time as paperback? I've grown so accustomed to reading on my Kindle, and I love it for this series perhaps especially, since it's so useful to be able to highlight and take notes (I read the TWLW the first time on Kindle and it was such a richer experience being to go back and easily check things out -- I mean I use sticky-notes on paperback and stuff, but it's not quite the same).

Of course, I will acquire this book in whatever form is available as quickly as humanly possible regardless, but I'm still curious (hell I'll probably buy both versions at the same time, as I do like having physical copies of my favorite books -- I still need to pick up a paperback WLW). Did TWLW have a simultaneous Kindle release?

I hope when the series is finished Bakker realeases some kind of badass leather-bound ultimate edition with crazy art and big maps and an encyclopedia and shit. I'd pay dollars. Many dollars.

[Madness]

Madness - You can explain the method to me?  How does doing this affect the change you're talking about?  What's Amazon's policy?

From someone named litgreg on TPB:

"if we all order it at once on Amazon we could cause the ranking to spike."

Madness ran with the idea without further explanation

Call me enthusiastic .

Even if that isn't true, it'll still look great on his sales and fan support. I will find out the mechanics exactly later - litgreg joined so maybe he can esplain himself.

But I figure probably, the higher number of simultaneous sales the more exposure TUC will get through their system.

I'm down for it. Out of curiosity, what's the likelihood that a Kindle version will come out at the same time as paperback? I've grown so accustomed to reading on my Kindle, and I love it for this series perhaps especially, since it's so useful to be able to highlight and take notes (I read the TWLW the first time on Kindle and it was such a richer experience being to go back and easily check things out -- I mean I use sticky-notes on paperback and stuff, but it's not quite the same).

Of course, I will acquire this book in whatever form is available as quickly as humanly possible regardless, but I'm still curious (hell I'll probably buy both versions at the same time, as I do like having physical copies of my favorite books -- I still need to pick up a paperback WLW). Did TWLW have a simultaneous Kindle release?

I think they'll probably be simultaneous releases.

I hope when the series is finished Bakker realeases some kind of badass leather-bound ultimate edition with crazy art and big maps and an encyclopedia and shit. I'd pay dollars. Many dollars.

This. Many, much dollars.

Glad I started the conversation though.

You are the stone that began an avalanche .

[Wilshire]

I hope when the series is finished Bakker realeases some kind of badass leather-bound ultimate edition with crazy art and big maps and an encyclopedia and shit. I'd pay dollars. Many dollars.

I was thinking about making my own. And by that I mean paying someone to rebind each book in leather and add the unique "earwa text" covers, that are inside each book, as raised golden text on the fronts. The biggest problem is that there are only 3 unique covers. TTT, TJE, and WLW all have the same image as their first page. Frustrating.

[Aural]

It would be funny if we all preordered the book together and then a year later we hear that Bakker hasn't sold a copy since TUC's release.

[Wilshire]

Funny in a morbid, depressing kind of way lol.

And to clarify, we're not planning on pre-ordering... Which means, btw, that we might have to purchase the book the day after it comes out so that all time zones will have access (if that is going to be an issue).

[Madness]

And to clarify, we're not planning on pre-ordering... Which means, btw, that we might have to purchase the book the day after it comes out so that all time zones will have access (if that is going to be an issue).

This is exactly what needs to be discussed here. The more timezones purchases are made in simultaneously the more impact this has - obviously, international SAers outside the Western Empire are going to be months behind (on translated copies anyhow - nothing to stop everyone from reading TUC in English first).

[Wilshire]

I imagine the ones that end up here will have a decent understanding of English.

[Madness]

To in/validate litgreg's inception:

http://kimberlyraewriting.blogspot.ca/2013/07/how-amazon-ranking-bestseller-numbers.html:

- If you sell a large number of books in a small amount of time, you are much more likely to get in the top 100 of your book's category.
- Your category is very important if you want on the bestseller list. The broader your category, the more competition you'll have.
- How do you get your book in the top 100 in its category? Well, either write an amazingly popular book, be famous, or...

Decide on a launch date, and ask everyone to wait to order it until that day. If a bunch of people order it in a small window of time, that gets your numbers way up (or rather down). This may shock you, but it took less than 50 books sales to get Sick & Tired on the bestseller list.

http://ryancaseybooks.com/amazon-ranking-myths/:

Why is this? Amazon rankings favour consistency over a one-off sale spike. If you build up to one single day, getting everybody you know/don’t know to buy it, then the chances are you’ll have a strong opening day, then just slip away completely. This isn’t ideal.

The solution? Again, I’ll go into that in the future. If you’re a newer author, like myself, there’s not a lot that can be done about this other than just waiting around for a first major promotion/new release. If you have a really large following (say, a mailing list of 100+, a Twitter with 100+ ACTIVE fans, a dedicated Facebook following), you can stagger your launch and keep your book selling consistently, thus gaining more exposure. If not, just keep writing more books and don’t blow your wallet on an expensive launch day. Amazon ranking tweaks mean it probably won’t work, not anymore.

http://www.lindsayburoker.com/amazon-kindle-sales/amazon-sales-ranking-explained/:

HOW IT WORKS?

As mentioned earlier, as soon as a single book is sold you get a ranking. Then the clock starts ticking. For each hour that goes by without a sale you climb a bit higher in the ranking (remember low rank = good, high rank = bad – you would rather be ranked 100 then 10,000). This change in ranking indicates that while you had no sales other people that were higher than you sold and they filled in the spots pushing you further up in the ranking. Then comes the time when you make a sale. When this happens there will be a dramatic change in the ranking. How far you fall depends on your past sales history and “rate” of sales. (How often you sell). Then the process begins again. This forms a series of peaks and valleys and it is the numbers on these extremes that really give you an idea of your sales. Any number “inbetween” is really just an indicator that it has been awhile since your last sale.

http://www.beneaththecover.com/2008/07/07/what-you-need-to-know-about-amazon%E2%80%99s-sales-rank/

What Is Amazon Sales Rank?

Amazon’s Sales Rank establishes a book’s relative number of copies sold to all the other books sold by Amazon. The ASR is a unique number that is constantly recalculated. For example if a book has an ASR of 100,000, then 99,999 other books sold more copies and approximately 4,900,000 books sold fewer copies at that particular time. The ASR is calculated as a rolling figure, and is based on sales over the last 90 days. It is, however, weighted by sales over the last five years to compensate for long-term big sellers after their sharp sales peaks have leveled out.

http://www.patriciawalsh.com/AmazonSalesRank.htm

How does selling a book affect your Amazon sales rank?

Morris Rosenthal has provided an excellent analysis of the significance of Amazon sales rank and its relationship to the average number of books sold.  His data will be used to put the present analysis in perspective.  It would be possible for Amazon to make a straight forward sales rank calculation for the top several hundred books.  The book that sold the most copies in the previous hour would be number 1.  The book that sold the second most copies would be number 2, and so on.  But that procedure would already break down by sales rank 900.  Rosenthal indicates that books with sales ranks between 800 and 1,000 are selling about 30 books per day.  With 200 books each selling about one or two an hour, Amazon could not order them into unique sales ranks on that basis.  Even considering the total number of books sold in the previous 24 hours and updating that number each hour would not be able to differentiate between the books.

[Madness]

Apparently, understanding the Amazon Sales Rank is an academic endeavor in and of itself.

I'm going to read up a little more but I think that a big initial spike, followed by two or three coordinated purchases over the following few days seems best.

One big spike seems like a sure way to obscurity (though realistically, Bakker does numbers into the hundreds of thousands apparently, so I don't think we need to worry about achieving Nskoghar's humourous hypothesis).

[Wilshire]

I agree, it seems that an initial spike of sales in the same hour will launch the book from obscurity up into the charts.  Without a spike, the book will probably just chronically sell just a few books an hour for some time.

Based on the links provided, I would think that constant low sales is about the worst possible thing. Much better to sell all of them at once and end up on the top charts rather than just never making it there in the first place.

Operation Top-100 (working title) is a go, imo.

[Madness]

I agree, it seems that an initial spike of sales in the same hour will launch the book from obscurity up into the charts.  Without a spike, the book will probably just chronically sell just a few books an hour for some time.

Based on the links provided, I would think that constant low sales is about the worst possible thing. Much better to sell all of them at once and end up on the top charts rather than just never making it there in the first place.

Operation Top-100 (working title) is a go, imo.

The issue is that one big spike and no more sales and the book goes down (lower ranking better) and then right back up over the next couple days. Equally the constant trickle never gets the book down at all. So both aspect are necessary.

As I wrote, I think that the constant trickle is going to happen regardless. So our push needs to be on the big spike (but in an ideal world, where all 100,000s purchased were mediated by us, we would need to plan for the consistent purchases after the big spike - again, I don't think we need to worry about this because the majority of his fans aren't going to get involved and thus will affect normal sales regardless).