Here is some reporting from my publisher Angel Ackerman at Parisian Phoenix Publishing, expounding on something that just happened to me on Amazon. If you don’t want to click on A.A.’s newsletter, here is the skinny: My new writing book/memoir Writing Dirty Words, has hit #1 in Amazon’s hot new releases in the erotica fiction writing reference niche.
Now, as I will freely admit—and this is the main point of this little blog—not only has my book only been out about two weeks (if that), but I know fully well that it has not sold in any kind of hefty numbers to warrant #1 slot (although, I truly thank those who bought it). And, if you were to explore the Amazon page where that #1 is listed (caught in my screen capture here), you would notice plenty of other books like mine on the listing. Therefore, one can conclude–as I report here with all humility–if there are lots and lots of books like mine, and my book has only been out a few weeks and, furthermore, has not sold in any kind of numbers to warrant such placement, Amazon either has a wildly skewed sense of reporting their sale numbers and book accolades or their algorithms are not based on any facts one can truly count on.
I am going with both conclusions.
This is the thing with things online, as pretty much anywhere, and is something I have been saying for years; you can’t much trust what you read about anything you read these days.
I had a teacher in a really neato nifty course in college who always said, “When they start countin’, you start doubtin’.” Boy, has that warning never been true. I see bands count their “likes” on Facebook as some indication of their popularity, when we all know tabulations like that can be interpreted any which way one wishes even if, in the end, you come to trust that counting. And as is evidenced by my recent Amazon testicle tickle, you pretty much can’t.
Sure yawp, post, twat and tweet, even write a blog like this one. But throwing it all ‘out there’ means very little in the end when we can’t trust even Amazon! I mean, what is the world coming to?
So, on we go. Am I thrilled by the listing? Sure…for all that it’s worth. I take these things, as we all should, with a big grain of salt. And when I have bragged about this #1 positioning, I have done it as sardonically as I have here. Will it sell me more books? Who the hell knows. In the nature of all things net, I’m sure my book, which you can find here, by the way (shameless plug, shameless plug and from the B&N site), will rise and fall in the listing by whatever inner Matrix-like logic Amazon plays by as they set the world to their making. We just need all be as cautious with the ‘who-is-on-top’ announcements as when a lover tells you that your skills are the very best they have ever encountered in the brief cool down post the orgasm you might have just helped them achieve; it’s all too fleeting a pleasure that probably they have gotten just as good or better someplace else or will find in the future.
Best blog ever!